


Through a mirror, darkly

by Soranis_Sunshadow



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Anxiety, Dissociation, Entrapdak is not the focus of the fic, Healing and adjusting to a new life is, Other, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Recovery, Wrong Hordak is Named Kadroh (She-Ra), Yudi is a total disaster, Yum, also all the character growth, recovering from brainwashing, religious trauma, they feast on that stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soranis_Sunshadow/pseuds/Soranis_Sunshadow
Summary: It's been months since the end of the war. Horde Prime's clones are trying to make new lives for themselves and find new purpose. It's not as easy as one would imply.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Yudi & Hordak
Comments: 147
Kudos: 98





	1. A terrible day

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at fanfiction, so please, if you have any constructive criticism to add, it would be deeply appreciated.

The castle of Dryl loomed in the distance, perched on the side of a mountain, it bore witness to the new settlement that had sprouted at its base seemingly overnight. The once lonely monolith was now surrounded by scaffolds and life. Where once it had stood alone, isolated and self-sufficient, both a technical marvel and a monument to eras passed, it now had a following of dwellings in various states of construction growing all around it. It would never be alone again.

Following the war, Entrapta had invited Prime’s clones to Dryl. The offer had been made to them in the hopes that they might find a new home and a new purpose and Princess Entrapta herself was, for whatever reason, quite fond of them. Some of them had instantly accepted the offer. They had an instinctive reaction to comply with most requests. Others had accepted because Entrapta already had two of their brothers at her side, it felt natural for more to follow. Some accepted because this new direction was better than the nothing and silence that followed them every day after Prime’s demise and the abolition of the hive mind. A few reluctantly accepted because they had no other real choice. Not many other kingdoms were as willing and the ships in orbit were not pilotable without input from the hive mind. For better or worse, they were stuck on this world for the foreseeable future.

It had been a few months since the war and in the time passed, some of the clones had started manifesting unique personalities. Preferences and choices were still difficult, but individuality was budding all the same, sometimes, even despite the wishes of the clones themselves. Some had been named by the locals, others have given themselves names and some still refused to be called anything other than Brother.

Yudi was one of the former. A local cat person had called him terrible and an utter disaster and despite his best efforts to make them stop, the moniker of Utter Disaster, shortened to UD had stuck to him like thistle to clothing and just like thistle it was infuriating at the best of times. Despite his “prickly” personality, Yudi, was one of his more functional brothers. Some were still shy or lost, some were confused and some were paralyzed by all this new “choice” that had been forced upon them.

There was no time to panic, no time to wallow and no time to lick wounds. His brothers needed accommodations, supplies, they needed safety and Yudi had chosen to tackle the problem head on instead of wallowing at its magnitude.

Without the hive mind, information was not as readily accessible and the better solutions to his problems were hard to find. Where once there had been thousands of voices, all working together to achieve the same goal, all in harmony, now he was left with either numbing silence or the dissonance of his own lonely thoughts. Doing things by himself was hard, but he would get better at it, he had to get better at it. His more vulnerable brothers relied on him getting better at it. Not to say that he was the only brother tackling the construction project or the long term agricultural goals or even establishing some form of production and economy for the kingdom of Dryl.

There were others here too and amongst them was his least favorite brother, the runt that had stranded them here in the first place. It didn’t help that the defect had apparently learned a thing or two in its exile and had started to put the knowledge to use leading to a sort of grudging admiration from some of his other brothers. He handled the planning of the new settlement, the logistics and even the construction itself through the use of the robotic drones. He had found a way to coordinate them through the use of some sort of neural interface but remained tight lipped on how exactly it functioned when asked about it directly. He would deny the existence of a neural link and maintain that the implant device he was utilizing was merely a long distance communicator with which he coordinated the drones. He insisted that should Yudi himself need the drones to assist with any task, he had to verbally communicate the task in explicit detail to the drones. Verbal communications was still hard. Yudi hated it and resented its necessity.

The things were clumsy and rather stupid and Yudi himself thought that he would do a far better job than the runt ever could with coordinating them. But no, Hordak had to be difficult about it.

A bubbly voice broke him out of his thoughts.

“Greetings brother!” came from behind him, “I hope the day finds you in good spirit!” It was Kadroh, one of the more outgoing and functional of his brothers. He had been a calming, guiding influence throughout the ordeal on all of them. It was hard to be anything but calm in his presence.

“Day, is a measurement of time, it can’t find me. It’s an abstract notion” Yudi had said without turning towards his fellow clone. “and you know I think spirits are nonsense”. He put down the electrical power panel he was working on and then turned to face his sibling. “Greetings brother!”

Kadroh lets out a laugh “It’s a figure of speech brother” then smiles at him, “ I meant I hope your day is going well”

“Things could be going better. Can’t concentrate on the electrical grid of this dwelling without these damn drones interrupting me when they get stuck in loops. How am I supposed to get anything done like this?”

“Peace brother, it will be done when it’s done, we are not on a schedule.” Kadroh put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a disarming smile. “We are comfortable at the moment in the camp and Entrapta is almost done deactivating all of the traps in the castle.” He added enthusiastically. “Everything will be fine, no need to push yourself so hard”. He let go of his shoulder and bent down to the basket at his feet to take a package out of it. “Have you had anything to eat today, or drink?”

“I knew I kept forgetting something” he reached out for the package and took it gingerly from Kadroh’s outstretched hand.

“The locals call these sandwiches,” he bent down and pulled a bottle of colored water out of the basket next. “what a silly name for a food, they have absolutely nothing to do with sand or magic, the Etherians are usually literal in their naming conventions but apparently, sandwich is one of those exceptions that proves the rule.” He chuckled and smiled broadly at him and then handed him the beverage.

“How would an exception prove a rule?” Yudi said through bites. He had been hungry. His brother seemed to have a knack for providing sustenance whenever he forgot about that bothersome need himself. Kadroh acted like a caretaker for most of them, always there to help and to listen to guide and to comfort.

“The argument states that if an exception exists or has to be stated, then this exception proves that there must be some rule to which the case is an exception to.” came from behind him in a haughty voice. How could they all have the same voice and yet sound so different? By the Light Yudi hated that particular voice.

“Greetings brother!” Kadroh piped in. “You look glum, are you feeling all right?”

“Hey defect” Yudi added with a sneering tone.

The runt regarded Yudi with a blank expression at first then raised a brow ridge while tilting his head slightly to the side. One of his ears twitched as he coughed in his hand. “Why would I not be feeling all right?” He then stared with his uncanny red eyes at Kadroh.

After the abolition of the hivemind and being weaned off the amniotic fluid, the eye color of most of his brothers started changing from green to yellow. Apparently, san’s Prime’s influence, their natural eye color had been a golden yellow glow. Some had different shades, of yellow like lime or saffron, but the defect had uncanny glowing red eyes. Even the defect’s defective creation had the right colored eyes. That walking fetus may have been stunted and released from gestation before maturation but at least when it looked at you; it didn’t instill the same uncanny eeriness that the defect himself exuded. What’s worse was that the runt insisted on highlighting the difference by painting the area around his eyes black. He was proud of being broken and that provoked Yudi even further.

“Oh, you know...” Kadroh said absently “ You’ve been working yourself awfully hard brother.” he shrugged "You could use a break and a sandwich.” he walked between Yudi and the defect, blocking them off from each other and extending his hand towards Hordak, holding the packaged food out. “Something tells me you too forgot to eat today.”

Hordak frowned at the offering. “I can’t be bothered with that now, I’m leaving to start on the reparations project for Salineas in a few days and there are still drones that I haven’t had a chance to update to the new firmware.”

“Brother!” Kadroh said reproachfully “Eating, hydrating and resting aren’t things you should be putting off!” he looked at him pleadingly. “Please eat this” he jerked the food towards him once more “For me?”

Hordak huffed and took the food bundle then started unpacking it. He took small bites out of it while standing and surveying the area. He eyed the electric panel that Yudi had been working on. One eye squinting critically. 

“Something to say?” Yudi pierced him with his golden glare.

“You are using uninsulated cables.” The runt said between bites. “The whole panel will be unstable,” he took another small bite then swallowed “prone to overheating and shorting out” he took another bite “Perhaps I could assist you in making it more stable, it won’t take long.”

“I don’t need your help with this.”Yudi stated flatly. Oh but the defect sure had gumption!

Hordak simply blinked slowly and added. “But you do require assistance, this task is evidently too complex to handle by yourself. A second pair of eyes might highlight minor issues to you that might have gone unnoticed. The uninsulated cables are a simple mistake, it could have happened to anyone, no need to be defensive about it.”

Yudi straightened to his full height, walked around Kadroh and faced Hordak completely. “Perhaps I do need assistance, just not YOUR assistance. I don’t trust your ability to aid me in this task.” He snapped dismissively.

“Brothers!” Kadroh tried to interject in a calming tone but was interrupted.

“I’ve been stranded on this planet for decades, in the interim; I’ve handled far more complex operations than this.” Hordak said while gesturing with his hand at the buildings around them, his tone flat and gravely. He regarded his bother with half closed eyes, mimicking indifference but the slight wilting of his ears gave him away.

“Please!” Kadroh tried to squeeze in, his tone now urgent.

“As if anything you’ve done here hasn’t been failure after failure!” Yudi pressed on with gleeful mockery.

“THIS! He started in a harsh tone, then stopped and continued in a forced calm “is something that I have already successfully accomplished before, I built a whole city with nothing but my broken ship. If you weren’t so obstinate to fight me at every turn, this job could be done so much quicker.”

Yudi puffed up and, without really thinking, immediately bit back with “Prime gave you one job, defect! to die! And you couldn’t even get that right!!! Why should I trust you with anything else?” It came out sounding more like a bark than a shout.

The sound of shattered glass broke them both out of it. Kadroh was panting besides them having dropped the glasses and the drinks. He was looking at Yudi with pleading, warm golden eyes. He tried to say something but all that came out was gasps. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish. 

Hordak let out a feral growl, bearing his crimson teeth at them and clenched his fists, the rest of the sandwich dropped on the ground, forgotten. He too took in a sharp breath, preparing to shout but then, all of a sudden, he stopped himself, his grimace flattened to a neutral expression and he unclenched his fists. The only thing that came out of his mouth was a tired sigh. He looked away from them “I don’t have time for this.” He then turned around completely and walked away leaving Yudi alone with Kadroh in the deafening silence that hung around his departure for a few minutes.

“Brother! That was completely uncalled for!” Kadroh said with a reproachful tone after having calmed down. Great, now his brother was angry with him because of the defect. And Yudi thought this day was already terrible enough. Apparently there’s always room for more terrible.

“Was it?” he said to Kadroh’s face, eyeing him with squinting eyes. ”Was it really? It’s his fault we’re all in this mess, his fault Prime found this planet and didn’t glass the damn thing form orbit” he started adding faster “it’s his fault we’re stuck here, stranded and at the mercy of these asinine creatures on this ridiculous planet, it’s his fault Prime got distracted at the end, and it’s his fault Prime’s DEAD! his fault we’re all alone now!”

“YES! Prime’s dead! And the universe is better for it!” Kadroh shouted at him snapping Yudi out of his rant. In a meeker voice he added “We’re better for it.” He looked away “If Hordak hadn’t done what he’d done, you wouldn’t be here to resent him for it, none of us would.”

“Brother I,” Yudi tried to deflect but Kadroh interrupted him.

“That was cruel, brother! That was cruel and it was wrong!” he crossed his arms over his chest. “And I’m crossed with you.”

“I don’t want to fight with you brother” Yudi said, deflating. “Please, forgive my outburst.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Kadroh added then turned around and left in a brusque pace.


	2. Misery loves company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yudi continues to be terrible and Kadroh is still upset

“Great! Just great!” Yudi said to himself after his brother’s departure. What did Kadroh get so upset at him for? He had just said what more of them were thinking. And thinking for oneself was supposedly encouraged now. He scoffed. Or was it only encouraged when you thought the right things? How was this any different that the before? Maybe Kadroh had been angered by the fact that he had been interrupted and hadn’t been allowed to express himself either. The argument had gone by pretty fast after all. 

Regardless, they were brothers, their voices may not have been as one anymore nor their thoughts shared seamlessly but being at odds left Yudi feeling off. He’d have to make it up to Kadroh somehow. His brother didn’t want an apology though, so what did he want to make peace? It wasn’t the first time Kadroh had told him to check his temper and by the Light, he had been making an effort. It’s just that that runt kept getting under his skin. Yudi himself couldn’t really get it either.

He didn’t really mourn Prime. After the initial shock of his death and The Great Disconnect, Kadroh had gotten most of his brothers to understand that they were being used. Prime had been a unifier, at the cost of… everything. Horde Prime had not been Perfection, he had not been a true God as they had all believed but under his guidance, they had been a force that kept the universe in check. What were they now? Lost! That’s what they were! Lost and confused and without purpose! They had 'choice' now, a choice forced on them! The choice to have a choice wasn’t even a choice any of them had chosen for themselves. He loathed that word and the reverence with which some of his brothers uttered it. The curious thing was that he resented it having been forced on him more than having it to begin with. Kadroh had been correct, Primes thoughts at the end were nothing but fury and fire and he would have killed them all in burning light. All would have died just the same, pure and impure alike. Their service and devotion had meant nothing in the end, their love for Prime would not have saved them. They had been lied to, and he understood that. He just couldn’t accept it.

This train of thought led nowhere he’d like to follow though and wallowing in existential crisis was getting nothing built any time soon. He forced himself to focus on the power panel. This was a problem that had an actual solution. This was something he could fix.

* * *

A few hours later, a few more strained nerves and a lot of burnt safety switches and resistors proved that this problem didn’t have an easy fix either. Terrible good for nothing panel! Terrible good for nothing day and terrible good for nothing planet! He punched the table and threw the cables on the floor in frustration then huffed and decided to deal with it later before he punched the panel itself and wrecked everything he had been working on all morning.

His head ached, his throat was parched and the light of day was starting to fade so he decided to put the tools back in their place and head back to the castle proper. He had been alone all day with nothing but the runt’s stupid bots and the silence was starting to get to him. He needed the soothing company of his brothers.

Some of his brothers resided in the castle Dryl, the bravest amongst them and the defect. A few unpleasant happenings related to their host’s ridiculous home defenses had dissuaded most of them, as such, they had decided to erect a temporary camp outside it, within the castle grounds. Rows upon rows of tents had been erected and now housed his brothers. They had been given the option to spread out in the interest of comfort but most chose to share accommodations. Nights were the hardest to deal with and they were worse if one had to deal with the silence alone. Very few amongst them could suffer it. Privacy had been a foreign concept for them so far and as such, the lack of it was a non-issue.

The PA system installed throughout the camp announced that it was apparently meal time. Now that they were stranded on this stupid planet, the locals insisted that they consume sustenance sourced locally. The food itself was interesting and new despite the initial difficulty they had to adapt to a change of diet.

After having being nourished through an intake exclusively of amniotic fluid for most of their lives, trying new food was not something that heartened most of his brothers. Unfortunately, that option was no longer available. The amniotic fluid, they had discovered, was laced with a number of hormones and drugs, intended to keep them docile and numb. That had been another nauseating revelation. The weaning process itself had also been… unpleasant. The alternative was worse though.

The first time they were offered food, the Etherians had tried to be “good hosts” and find what their favorite foods could be. It was… kind of them, but the rich foods proved to be… a bit too much for stomachs unaccustomed to diversity. The results were painful and, quite embarrassing. After examining the issue, it had become apparent that living aboard a sterile vessel and consuming nothing but sterile sustenance had left most of them with no gut bacteria to speak of which meant that digesting some of the foods they actually needed was impossible at first.

The runt, having been planetside for two decades hadn’t looked for a solution to this problem either. He had thought that the food was irritant instead and had developed what their host princess called: an eating disorder along with chronic emaciation.

The key to adapting to a change of diet had been slowly introducing new foods, easily digestible ones at first, and then slowly diversifying. Their first “appropriate” meals looked quite disgusting, in Yudi’s opinion. What they ate bore a striking similarity in appearance to what was excreted. What made matters worse was that apparently, this new form of sustenance had to be consumed more frequently than the amniotic fluid which was quite a chore in itself. Someone had to prepare all of it and serve it a number of three times each day.

Some of their brothers volunteered to learn from the locals how to prepare the meals. They enjoyed being able to pick their own tasks and most of their kind enjoyed serving a purpose. There were of course a few exceptions but they were few and far between.

Another thing that had been an uncomfortable issue for them had been the planet’s gravity. It was slightly higher than what they had been used to on the Velvet Glove and the first weeks were plagued by muscle aches and joint pains. Eventually, the problem seemed to have gone away by itself, with rest and a proper nutrition, their bodies adapted to the change seamlessly and the discomfort faded.

Yudi reached the mess hall and looked around, trying to spot any brothers that he was better acquainted with to strike a conversation or at the very least, to listen to them talk. They were clones, yes but there were still subtle differences that only their kind picked up on. The kindred, which is what they have started calling their species, despite the fact that the Etherians insisted on calling them spacebats for some reason, were used to looking at faces that were identical and as such, they had unique ways of telling each other apart that didn’t translate well to their hosts.

He spotted Kadroh sitting at a table with a following of brothers, enjoying their meal. He decided to join in after having picked his own. They were having a lively conversation about root-vegetables of all things. Basil, was enthusiastically bragging about his turnips. This particular brother had a fascination with plants and their sprouting. Yudi himself didn’t really understand the attraction but the growing plants were apparently a continuous source of joy for Basil. He had called himself that because of the basil plant that he had carried around with him the first days after The Great Disconnect. He liked all green things apparently and he couldn’t shut up about them. He had even gotten Pickles excited about plants and once Pickles got excited about anything, no one was getting any sleep that night in their tent.

The third brother participating in the discussion was the uninspiredly named “Bro”. Just like Yudi, Bro hadn’t chosen the name for himself but unlike the latter, he didn’t fight it much either. He figured he’d call himself something else later when he found a better moniker. He just never bothered to look for one though. Not to say that Bro was apathetic or anything, quite the contrary. He just didn’t have the patience to maintain his attention on any one thing in particular.

The two other brothers present weren’t ones he was personally familiar with. There were so many kindred here and some of them were new arrivals. Some had tried staying in the other kingdoms but they grew to miss their brothers and decided to join the community they were building here.

“Hey, one of the Etherians told me a very humorous thing today,” Basil said with a broad smile on his face. “You all want to hear it?”

“Sure!” said Pickles, Kadroh nodded while chewing and Bro just added a quick ”Yes” that coincided with Yudi’s “No”

“It goes like this” he laughed a little, “Why does the mushroom get invited to all the vegetable parties?” he then stopped and looked at them all giddy with a wide toothy grin on his face.

Pickles stared at him intently, and Bro asked “what’s a party?”

“A celebration” Kadroh quipped.

“Well?”, one of the new kindred asked, “why did he?”

Basil broke into a chortle and said: “Because he’s such a fungi! “

Kadroh and the new guys laughed, Bro just stared at Basil and blinked while Pickles tilted his head and said “I don’t understand it”, one ear lowered “why would he be invited because of that? do toadstools do anything special at these parties? ”

“No,” Basil said, still laughing, “ it’s wordplay!” then, he enounced “ because .he’s. such. A. FUN – GUY! Get it? Fun? Guy? Fungi?” He started laughing again.

Yudi just humphed. “Yeah, hilarious…”

“Oooooh, I get it!” Bro said then started laughing too.

“ I still don’t” continued Pickles sadly.

“Fine, I have another joke for you!” added Basil. “Why did the pear like the banana?” He paused for dramatic effect once more.

No one said anything, they were waiting for the continuation, all except Kadroh who was already snickering.

“Of for the love of…” Yudi piped in “ Why?!?”

“He found it… a-peeling” then he burst into loud laughter, all of them did, all of them except for Yudi.

“Still not funny.” Yudi said flatly.

“Oh, you’re just sore you’ve been eating those things without peeling them for two whole weeks until I brought it up.” Basil said between chuckles.

“How many times are you going to bring that up?” Yudi let out, exasperated “it’s been a month! It was an honest mistake, no one told me you were supposed to peel the damn things.”

“The taste didn’t give it away?” Pickles asked. 

“Not really, it wasn’t exactly pleasant but how was I supposed to know it was wrong?”

“Eh, good point, but the faces you made while eating them were still entertaining” Kadroh added calmly.

“Now that you’ve had your fun at my expense, I’d like to enjoy my meal.” said Yudi with a sigh.

“All right, all right, I hear you” Basil said somberly then added “Yudi needs some peas and quiet.” then started laughing again.

Yudi just growled.

The conversation veered off in other directions after that and some of them got up and left. Kadroh remained at the table though, even after having finished his meal. He was looking at him intently but said nothing. Yudi tried ignoring him but there was no getting away from that look. He was not escaping this conversation.

“Yes.” he stated in the most neutral tone he could manage.

“You apologized?” Kadroh inquired. “When?”

“No, I meant to say; Yes? As in, I was asking you why you were giving me that look?” Yudi supplied. “I haven’t apologized and I don’t understand why I have to.”

Kadroh frowned and Bro added “What did he do this time?”

“What do you mean ’this time’?”

“Yes, brother, tell him what you did this time.” Kadroh frowned at him and crossed his arms. He was clearly still upset.

“I interrupted you and didn’t let you speak your mind.” Yudi said.

“No.” and with a sigh, Kadroh continued, “That was not it, I told you specifically what you should apologize for this morning and to whom.”

“What? You really want me to apologize for speaking my mind? I thought everybody could do that now!” He was becoming irritated.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t speak your mind brother, I just take issue with how you did it.” Kadroh continued, “You said some very hurtful things this morning and you said them in the unkindest way possible.”

“He had no business butting in on my work or offering any unsolicited advice! As if he could be better than me at anything!”

“Who butted in, whose head did Yudi bite off now?” Inquired Pickles.

“Well, Yudi?” Kadroh asked, “They want to know apparently, tell them what you said this morning to our brother.” His tone was getting pressed. There clearly was no way out of this now.

“I snapped at the defect again.” He said dismissively,” like any of you hadn’t done that before” then he huffed.

“Snapped?! Yudi, you were vicious and it was uncalled for!” Kadroh was getting annoyed.

“Oh come off it! I may have gotten a little carried away but I’m not the only one thinking this.”

“Is that so?” asked Kadroh and turned towards his other brothers at the table. “Have any of you told Hordak he should have died recently?”

“What?!” Both Pickles and Bro asked in unison.

“Yudi, you didn’t.” Great, now Pickles was giving him the look too. Bro just blinked at him blankly then shook his head, his ears flopping. “Wow, Yudi, that’s a new one.” he snickered, “There’s telling him off and then there’s THAT.”

“Why are you defending him anyway?” Yudi turned towards Kadroh once more. “If the reject was so bothered by it, why didn’t he confront me himself?” He raised his arms to make his point. ”He just turned around like a coward and walked away”.

“Then I suppose I’m a coward too.” said Kadroh as he rose from his chair, “Because I’m not talking to you until you think about what you’ve done.” He turned his back with finality and walked away.

“Wow Yudi, you actually got Kadroh mad, that’s an achievement.” Bro quipped. “What did you really say though? Besides the death part, I got that part.”

“I called him some things and blamed him for our current predicament. And anyway, I didn’t tell him to die exactly; I told him that Prime had wanted him dead.” Yudi stated, “That’s all. Really!”

“Yudi, let me tell you something I discovered a few months back.” Bro told him with a conspirational look on his face. “If you want Hordak to stop butting in on whatever you’re doing and leave, the only thing you have to say is ‘failure’, then stare at him, he’ll get antsy and leave, just like that. You don’t have to add anything or be extra rude. Just say ‘failure’. That way Kadroh can’t get mad at you.”

“Or you could not do that” added Pickles. “You could just listen to what he wants to say when he offers to help.” Pickles looked sad. “I used to pick on him relentlessly too until I realized he just legitimately just wanted to assist me, and that’s all. He’s not showing off or taking your task, he actually has good advice to offer. I know it may be strange to consider but, he’s been alone for years on this weird planet. He’s just trying to fit in with us.”

“Oh, great, now you’re defending him too” mumbled Bro as he put a palm on his face.

“I’m not defending anyone, there’s nothing to defend!” Pickles exclaimed. “Why do you guys love antagonizing him? I resented him at first too, for Prime’s death, until I realized that Prime being gone was a good thing.” He had said this with his palms spread upwards and in front of him trying to emphasize the point.

“Yeah, yeah, most of us got that” Bro shrugged “that’s not what bugs me about him though, it did at first but now, it’s just his stupid, smug face.”

“Bro, we’re clones, we all have the same face.” Yudi added flatly.

“It’s not the face, face! It’s that smug look of his.” Bro added in a gravely, mocking tone "‘Oh, look at me! I’m different and that makes me so much better than you! Let me show you how much better I am at everything!’ and then he looks at you with those disturbing red eyes.”

“He’s not! Ugh!” Pickles piped up! “He isn’t doing any of that, at least not deliberately.”

“Do you two have a hivemind connection that I’m not aware of, for you to know his thoughts so well?” Yudi inquired mockingly.

“No, I just used this interesting new thing called empathy.” Pickles stated flatly. “ I asked myself, what I would have done in his place.”

“Died! Like Prime intended” Yudi let out “The failure couldn’t even get that right.”

Bro and Pickles looked at him with stunned faces. Their expressions showed shock, sadness, it was sadness and fright and some other indescribable thing.

“He wanted us all dead at the end, you felt it through the connection, He wanted everything gone…” Pickles said as he looked at the floor, ears dropping to his shoulders.

“I think I left something unfinished.” Bro added in a nervous tone of voice. “I should go.” And he leaves, just like that.

Yudi shuddered in the silence and kept looking at his remaining brother. Pickles just drew in a breath, let it out slowly, and added “Don’t let what Prime wanted, color your perspective, brother. He was not perfection, and he was not the Light. He never cared about us. We shouldn’t care what he would want us to do.” With that, Pickles too rose from his chair and started walking away, but then stopped, looked back, and added ”whatever your issue with Hordak is, keep in mind, he’s trying his best to help.” and then he too left.


	3. Chasing shadows

Yudi was left alone at the table. The voices of his brothers at the other tables around him and ongoing discussions surrounded him but he was oddly detached from it all. The sounds were muffled, he couldn’t really pick anything out from the cacophony of noise. He folded his hands in front of him on the table and looked intently at the plate of food. It had lost its appeal and Yudi had lost his appetite. His shoulders slumped, his ears twisted backward as far as they could go, and stayed there, fixed. He looked at the plate but he didn’t really see it. His brothers’ words were swirling around in his head. He knew the others had felt Prime’s unhinged wrath before the end. They had talked about it with each other in the immediate aftermath when the magic of this world burst out and surrounded them. They had fled in terror, the newly amputated hivemind connection felt like a seething raw wound. Hearing their own thoughts in the isolation that had become their minds had shattered some of their brothers. That had been a dark time. None of them wanted to go back there. Yet, somehow, the defect had experienced that disconnect twice. Had it been easier the second time, or worse?

Pickles had asked what he would have done in the reject’s place. Yudi and his brothers were alone in their own heads now, but they still had each other and the locals were sympathetic to their plight for whatever reason. The runt had been completely alone on this horrid planet and he’s the only one of the kindred whom the locals consistently avoided, except for their host that is. Given his history with the place, it made sense. The hairy princess and the runt were nigh inseparable, but the memory-bleed through the hivemind only divulged grief and pain when considering her. It made interacting with her, in any measure, difficult for Yudi. Had she been dead? Could this planet’s magic bring someone back from death? Was it that powerful and unnatural?

Magic was an unsettling thing still, despite it being woven into the air itself or maybe, because of it. It broke the natural laws of the universe. It troubled them all and yet, the Etherians embraced it. Prime had called it evil, an aberration. But Horde Prime had lied to them about many things, had he lied about this as well?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat; it was a group of brothers. He wasn’t familiar with these ones.

“May we sit at your table brother?” One of them asked. They were all holding their own trays of food and were looking at him with neutral expressions. Yudi considered the request, he looked at his own cold food and nodded.

“Enjoy your meal brothers.” He got up and started heading for the exit. He was heading out but he had no idea where he should go next. It was too early to retire for the day. Some of his brothers gathered together and tried this new concept called “entertainment”, Yudi was in no mood for it. He decided that he should head to Castle Crypto proper and have a talk with the defect. When the discussion would get heated, and it inevitably would, the runt had a temper, after all, he could tell Kadroh that he had at least tried to apologize but the defect had made it impossible.

* * *

Crypto Castle was an interesting collection of contradictions. It was both high-tech and an ancient building. Its halls were wide and spacious and yet, one felt confined within its corridors. The place was as aberrant as the princess that reigned over it. Elegant high vaulted ceilings were braced by industrial buttresses. The place was a maddening maze for most Etherians but, for the kindred, it was reminiscent of the Velvet Glove in a peculiar way. The flagship too had had winding corridors and long halls that led to nowhere in particular. There was a method to the madness, a pattern to the corridors’ direction. The halls led to central rooms that had other corridors emerging from them in a radial pattern. The rooms were like gears, the halls leading from one to the other usually followed a slanted clockwise direction. If you wanted to go forward, you had to take the second corridor to the left.

It had taken more for them to spot the traps than it had taken them to learn to navigate the place. The traps themselves had no pattern and no reason. Some had triggers on the floor, ancient pressure plates, others were high-tech motion sensors or laser triggers. The traps had been built into the edifice and more had been added later on. The princess had started deactivating them to make her home more hospitable to her new guests.

Yudi tried to locate one of the princess’s robot servitors that usually scurried about, one of them could lead him to the runt. He resented this task. He hadn’t really thought about what he should say to him. How would he even broach the subject? What was he actually apologizing for anyway? It’s not the first time he’d had arguments with him after all. If he were to apologize for that, it’d be disingenuous. The runt was an annoying know it all but he was no fool. Yudi could apologize for his temper but the defect had one too. It would be highly hypocritical of him to demand an apology for a fault that they both had. That’s the last thing Yudi wanted, to feed the reject’s pride, his own wouldn’t allow it.

He’d have to control himself once the runt started shouting, that way, he could tell Kadroh that he tried to be civil, that he made an effort. It was going to be hard however, the reject was mouthy when he got inflamed.

He’d start with uh… huh, he’d start with what exactly? He would greet him, yes, that’s how you started a conversation now. He would greet him and then he will… he will bring up the day’s earlier discussion? Was that too abrupt? How would he even greet him without getting his hackles up? No, he’d have to say some of those things the Etherians say when they are making their talk small, just something to bridge him over from the greeting. How does anyone talk small anyway? The locals had an obsession with mentioning the weather for some reason, maybe he’ll mention that. They do seem to talk a lot about their vestments too… why is the aspect of their clothing so important to them anyway?

No, focus! Focus! Right, greeting, small talk then he will bring up the argument. Bring it up how? He would bring up the power panel? But if he does that, then the runt will just inquire if he had gotten it to work… and Yudi hadn’t so far. That would just provoke the defect into showing off how he’d get it to work and how fast and efficient he’d be at it. He sure liked showing everyone how smart and competent he was, smug bastard. He was always pointing out when his brothers did something “wrong”. ‘Oh, look at me, I’m, Hordak and I know everything! You bungled the power panel because you don’t have the unlimited knowledge of the hivemind at your disposal, neither do I but I don’t need it because I’m obnoxiously good at everything! You failed this one task you had today! You bring up my failure only because you’re so ashamed of your own.’

Hmm, no, he wouldn’t say that, he’d just present Yudi with a working power panel and then look at him with those creepy red eyes like he wanted a prize or something. ‘Hey, look how easy it is to make a working power panel, why couldn’t you do it? Look how damn perfect it is, it regulates and modulates. Could yours do that?’ Damned defect!

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a sharp chirping and then the voice of one of his kind. He spots the source of the noise in one of the circular chambers. What luck! It was the runt and his fetus.

He had changed his clothes ever since this morning. He was now wearing a long dark coat. He had a preference for darker colors, it made him stand out amongst his brethren even more. The fetus was perched on the defect’s armored forearm looking intently at him and chirruping.

“It’s not the first time this has happened Imp nor is it the first time we’ve had this discussion.” the runt said to the creature. It answered with a low squeak. “Yes, I know it was an accident.” How did he understand what it was saying? It was all just meaningless chirping.

“Whenever you have to haul vessels that contain liquids, make sure they are properly sealed, especially if your intended route involves the ventilation shafts.” this had been said in a tired tone, yet it was not frustration that colored the words, it was… affection? Strange. So he could make observations without being condescending. He just couldn’t do it when talking down to Yudi apparently.

Another chirp and then, “Taking the paint out of the cloth with solvent is going to damage it” The creature pushed its head in the defect’s shoulder and lowered its ears then let out a muffled peep. The runt lowered his hand on its nape and added in an amused tone. “It’s not a significant issue, garments are replaceable.” The thing looked at him and he started scratching its chin delicately.

Watching them felt intrusive somehow so Yudi decided that he should make his presence known. He cleared his throat and started walking towards them at a sure pace. This drew the runt’s attention to him. He looked towards Yudi placidly at first, then, after gaining recognition, he pierced him with a glare and narrowed his eyes at him. One of the corners of his mouth curled down as he let out a long-suffering exhale. Great, Yudi hadn’t even said anything and this was already looking anything but promising. The thing in his arms stared at him with a frown too. Really? The fetus was flippant too? Of course it was glib! The defect had made it. It Screeched at him and jumped down from Hordak’s arms.

“I wanted to” Yudi started, stopped, looked at the wall, and stammered some more “uh, what I mean is…”

One of the runt’s ears flicked, he drew in a breath, raised his index finger and then, opened his mouth as if to answer but changed his mind at the last moment. He covered his face with his palm and let out a long, drawn-out exhale then he turned around and walked away without uttering a single word, his long coat swirling behind him, the sound of his heavy steps resounding in the corridor grew fainter.

“What are you staring at fetus?” Yudi mocked it.

It humphed, then opened its mouth and a recorded voice came out. “Useless!”

To say that he hadn’t expected that, was putting it mildly. This thing, it taunted him. The nerve! “What did you say?” Yudi shouted at it as he glowered over its diminutive form. As he took a step towards it, however, the damn thing took flight, laughed, and repeated “useless” over and over again. If he were to ever get his claws on it, he’d wring its stupid defective little neck.

The thing flew off into a vent still uttering “useless” while snickering to itself.

Yudi pulled off one of his shoes and threw it at the vent in fury. It bounced off the wall and fell back at his feet. He was shaking with impotent rage and he wanted to break something, anything! He started pacing to and fro trying to calm his thoughts with little success. He let out a furious howl and slammed his fist into a wall then continued to pace. So the runt decided to avoid him huh!?! The nerve! He won’t get his way! He’ll have this discussion and he’ll have it today! He’s just going to stalk the damn defect until he ran out of places to scuttle off to. By the Eternal Light the discussion he’s going to have with him! Oh! Yudi’ll show him, he’ll put him in his place! He heads off in the direction the runt fled to.

* * *

Crypto Castle was by no means a small dwelling but somehow, its interior seemed to defy physics with the magnitude and length of all of its corridors. The pathways were seemingly endless and the vaulted ceilings reflected the clatter of his own steps back at him. In his rage, he had gotten distracted by his own spiraling thoughts and had gotten lost.

There was a pervasive darkness that touched all things in this place. It made him uneasy. For most of his life, he had been surrounded by light. The open corridors of the Velvet Glove had been bright and open. Nothing could hide in the Light. All were laid bare before Prime, all workings were exposed, all thoughts shared or rather taken. There was a simplicity in that, a comfort to be had in certainty, in rules clearly stated. There was a goal they all served, a shared purpose that they all worked towards. One did as directed, each contributing his small part to a greater whole, to a plan so grand that it was inconceivable by those unworthy of Prime’s love. Together, they had spread the Light across a whole galaxy. Together, they had changed the face of the universe.

What were they now if not insignificant, disjointed, and broken? Where once, they had one mind, had each other and the righteousness of a singular measureless purpose that they all strove towards, now they were alone, each with their own small lives, small deeds, and inconsequential directions. They pulled every each way in their pointless individual existences. Nothing either one of them did ever changed anything in the grand scheme of things. Their efforts amounted to nothing. Time and the cosmos would continue on with or without them all the same, dumb and indifferent.

But that purpose, certainty, and direction hadn’t been theirs had it? He and his brothers had been the fuel that fed Prime’s engine wherever He had taken them. They were consumed in the process. Prime’s Light had been a blaze that spread across the galaxy, purging it in Holy Fire. He and his brothers had been the kindling, nothing more. Not one tinder matters to the fire, they all burn just the same. And burned they had, with searing devotion they’d offered everything.

The purpose had been grand, the Mission Holy, but what were they offered in kind? A hollow, drugged, numb existence! Each and every one of them had believed themselves to have been beloved of Prime. Even now, months after the end, he missed that love, the love he thought he had, the love of his creator. That love had been a lie, Horde Prime’s most hurtful deception. He hadn’t loved them, he hadn’t cared. His brothers all had been but tools to be used, extensions of Prime’s overwhelming will. He knew Prime hadn’t loved them, but Yudi missed the lie all the same.

The sound of a click and the slight sinking of his foot pulled him out of his thoughts. Yudi froze in place. If he lifted his foot, the trap would trigger. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. There was a painting on the wall depicting a pink confection. He sighed in relief. He’d stumbled into this very trap before on other occasions. The trick to it was to roll forward, not back. The floor opened up beneath you if you jumped back. He made the leap ahead. Nothing happened. The floor tile clicked up but the trap hadn’t triggered. The hairy princess had apparently deactivated it at some point.

Their host was, by far, the most confounding creature Yudi had ever met. She was a woman of science and logic and yet she was a being of magic concomitantly. Her creations obeyed the laws of physics, in a way that she, herself, never seemed to. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, she was utterly focused and she was completely scattered in all directions and worst of all, she was kind to him and his brothers in a way none of them had ever experienced before. She saw them in ways that they themselves weren’t even aware they could be seen. Her gaze pierced as much as Prime’s had but where He had seen their sins and cut them down to size, she saw their potential and gave them room to grow. Perhaps that is what had drawn the defect to her side.

Speaking of the defect, Yudi recognized his uniquely gravely timber of voice echoing down the hallway. He had found him at last. He was in the castle kitchen conversing with one of the locals. Yudi cocked his ears trying to listen in on the conversation.

“ Uuh, they’re uh… almost done… the cupcakes that is, any time now…” a woman said with a nervous squeak, the sound of dishware clanking, accompanying her voice. “yep, aaany time now”. He heard the uneasy shuffling of footsteps.

“So you have already stated.” Came the defect’s flat response.

“Yeap… uh… just about done.” She answered in a jittery voice.

Yudi considers going into the kitchen after the runt. The room had only one exit, so he wouldn’t be scurrying anywhere and as an added bonus, there was a local there. If there was one thing you could count on, it was the fact that, for some reason, the runt despised making a scene when there were Etherians present. He would puff himself up and strut about but he would do his damnedest to maintain composure. He’d have no choice but to listen!

He heard the clinking of glass and a beeping noise.

“Done! I’ll… I’ll just put them on the tiny plates, just like… uh, just like the princess wants them.” He hears more clanking and shuffling and a nervous laugh.

“That is acceptable.” The runt answered calmly but, after a pause, he continued in a tentative tone. “You… have my appreciation.”

“Oh, uuuh, you’re welcome?” She stammered awkwardly.

The way the reject interacted with the locals and the way he interacted with his own kind were worlds apart. Where he was pushy with his kindred and butted in unsolicited, in the presence of these Etherians he was reserved, almost meek in a strange way. It was perplexing. How had he managed to subdue them with an attitude like that? The little information of his conquest that had slipped into the hivemind had revealed that he tried converting them and when that failed, he’d used drones and an army to slowly annex the land.

That’s not how Prime would have done it and it’s not how Yudi would have done it either. In his place, he’d have used weapons of mass destruction to subdue the locals. A few thermonuclear explosions or antimatter ordinance in the main population centers and the locals would have surrendered in fear of further violent repercussions, as they most often did in the face of Prime’s overwhelming might. Bar the magic they had at their disposal, the locals seemed primitive for the most part. The technology at their disposal was reverse-engineered from their more advanced predecessors and was not readily available to most of them.

Only their host seemed interested in furthering their technology. Primitive worlds were the easiest to cower and subdue. And yet the runt had been waging war on this one for decades and hadn’t conquered it…

Then it occurred to him Prime had faced them and had died in just a fraction of that time…

The defect walked out of the kitchen holding a few bottles of some dark beverage and a tray of small plates with equally small colorful confections. He stopped in his tracks and eyed Yudi. His ears went as far back as they could, the motion accompanied by a scowl. Now was his chance!

“What I wanted to say earlier was” he uttered in a sure voice but he didn’t finish the sentence, the runt brusquely interrupted him.

“Whatever this is, I have neither the time for it nor the disposition.” He said in an irritated tone then extended his left armored hand and put it on Yudi’s shoulder, then pushed him aside as if he were furniture. Yudi was left dumbstruck once more.

Physical contact was something neither he nor the runt were comfortable with. He went through a ridiculous amount of effort to avoid it, even when butting in on whatever Yudi was working on. But now, he had, without any hesitation, just reached out and done it. He then continued on and walked away with heavy steps leaving Yudi behind in the hall once more to stare at his retreating form.

So, perhaps he won’t have this discussion today. The runt seemed determined to dismiss him. Yudi would just have to tell Kadroh that he had tried but the defect was just being more difficult than usual. He barely got a few words in this time. How can he talk to him if he just kept turning his back to Yudi and walked away?

In all their disagreements before, they both got riled up and yelled at each other. This dismissal was new and it was exceedingly annoying. He’ll just have to tell Kadroh that he had tried his best but the runt would have none of it. Actually, this could work in his favor. It’s Hordak’s fault he kept avoiding the conversation! Yeah, he actually tried to apologize, TWICE! The defect is the one who shunned his attempts! Yudi had a feeling that if he were to track him down a third time, the runt would just do a repeat escape performance which would render the whole thing pointless, and to be frank, he was too tired for it. If Kadroh still wasn’t satisfied, he’d try again some other day but for now, he was done. This was another day that had gone by with nothing to show for it.


	4. Reality Check

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that updating took so long, RL has been unkind. I can't promise that I'll update faster since things haven't really gotten any better but I do plan on slowly continuing this. It's been cathartic writing it, whenever RL allowed for it. 
> 
> Thank you Shadsie for allowing me the inclusion of your wonderful Horde Clone OC in my fic and for all your help and patience. If you guys want to read other stories about awesome horde clone OC’s I highly recommend her stories, the one I included was from her fic :The Gift of a Name

The cooling evening air greeted him as he found his way back outside. The nights had been growing longer and colder for a while. Yudi had learned that this was not a normal thing for this planet. Before it was ousted from its pocket dimension, Etheria enjoyed a constant climate and was warmed by its own magic, not any local star. It was illuminated by one of its many moons, the biggest and brightest one had emitted a magical light. By rejoining normal space, it had appeared back in the solar system that it had been part of and the large moon that had “served as its star” had dulled. Seasons and their changing nature were something the locals were experiencing for the first time. In this, at least, he was more knowledgeable than them. He had been stationed with the flocks of other planets before and had experienced the unpleasant and changing nature of seasons firsthand.

He briefly wondered how his brethren stranded on other worlds were faring. How did they react to Prime’s sudden silence, to the Great Disconnect? How did the locals react to them? It occurred to him that he and the brethren stationed on Etheria were uniquely fortunate to be amongst a people that bore them no ill will for what had come to pass under Prime’s command. Horde Prime had teleported a great number of them here for the final assault, depleting the flocks of other planets in the process.

Yudi shuddered to think what less friendly populations had done to his stunned and vulnerable brothers after Prime’s death had rendered them “harmless”. There were brothers in orbit, on the needle-ships trying to establish connection, but without the central hub of the Velvet Glove or the connection of the hivemind, no communication was getting through. Or… perhaps, no one was answering back because, after months of deafening silence from Prime and no assistance, there was no one left to answer…

No.

He will not think about that.

He looked around the camp trying to find a distraction, anything to hold his attention and to keep him from his own maudlin thoughts. The smell of burning things and smoke drew in his attention with urgency. Something must have happened and some of his brothers might be in danger so he started running towards the source only to be greeted by what appeared to be a gathering of kindred and locals around a fire that they were purposely maintaining, for some reason. He wanted to inquire as to what was happening and why they were burning bits of used scaffolding. This made no sense. There was, a rhythmic noise growing louder the closer he got to the conflagration and a blonde, thin Etherian chanting to the noise. No, not chanting, singing, this was called singing. It was quite melodious. Everyone was excited for some reason and some of the brothers in charge of preparing meals along with three of the princess’ staff were preparing some meats and vegetables over the fire. His brothers and more of the locals were… mingling.

The noise stopped and the lizardperson that had been making it with a stringed instrument in his grasp was petitioned for more by his brethren along with the blonde human. He nodded but the human just embraced him from behind and nuzzled his throat. The open display of physical affection was so strange to witness. It felt like Yudi was intruding on something personal. He looked away. It made him uncomfortable for some reason he wished not to dwell on.

He started looking for more familiar and likeminded company, perhaps Bro was around. He started walking amongst them, looking for anyone that he could listen to. He felt like he’d had his quota of failed conversations for the day. He looked around for someone who might provide companionship without actually forcing him to participate. Opening his mouth had the knack of getting him into trouble…

Everyone already seemed engaged in conversations, perhaps if he slipped in amongst a larger group, they wouldn’t actually ask him anything. Or even better, he’d slip amongst a group that was even less likely to start anything or chide him on his apparent abrasiveness.

He spotted just the right place and made his way to the periphery of the gathered brothers. These ones were some of the more reclusive, shy ones; clones that hadn’t adapted to the change so well. Their main caretaker, Joy had taken them out for what he deemed “much needed fresh air”. He did that with some degree of frequency.

Yudi didn’t see the need for it. They had lived most of their lives on spaceships without it, it was hardly a necessity. If anything, “fresh air” was a novelty. But Joy will be Joy and nothing could really dissuade him from something once he fixated on it, not even his closest companion, Glum.

Joy was a well-known individual amongst the kindred. He and Glum were the brothers in charge of the maturation and decantation process back on the Velvet Glove and oversaw most programming and reconditioning procedures… they had handled decommissioning in Prime’s name too… They were literally the first faces that most of their kind saw when coming into being and when there was no conflict being fought, likely the last ones.

Despite the fact that they butted heads on a constant basis, they were almost always together. They had been inseparable during their service to Horde Prime. Now, after the end of the war, given a chance to part ways, they chose not to. Yudi supposed he wasn’t the only one holding on to old things that brought him comfort, be it a comforting lie one tells themselves or the familiar presence of somebody one knows they don’t actually get along with.

Joy had named himself after the first thing he said he had felt after the Great Disconnect. He was uniquely energetic and optimistic so much so that at times it felt a bit forced, especially his constant smiling. He had adopted the facial expression as his default and maintained it even when the topic of discussion didn’t really make smiling appropriate. Yudi himself had understood that facial expressions were contextual; this fact had apparently flown over Joy’s head.

He maintained that if he could have any facial expression, he’d choose a positive one. Even stated at one point that by believing in positivity, it would make one positive and what better place to start than by expressing it for all to see? Yudi was not sure that manifesting emotion worked exactly like that but he never claimed to be knowledgeable in such matters.

Joy and Glum, his constant companion, were the most knowledgeable about their kind’s biology and cybernetics amongst the kindred. They worked along the princess in order to figure out how to better adapt to their “new home” and how to better tend to their kind’s needs. Whereas Joy was quite easygoing and tolerant to a ridiculous degree, Glum was quite the opposite. He was jaded and cynical on the best of days. Joy had imposed the moniker on him through repetition, and unfortunately for him, it fit so well that everyone got used to calling him that, despite Glum’s constant objections. Not to say that he was depressed or mean in any particular way, he was just, as he put it “tired”. Glum was direct, with little patience for what he called “nonsense”. This was a trait Yudi himself appreciated when it wasn’t focused on him. Despite his less than charming personality, scuttlebutt always reached his ears somehow.

Most of the unadjusted and passive brothers in their care remained nameless. This was in part because they didn’t actually manifest much of a personality; they were inert and indifferent to most happenings around them, stuck inside their own heads. Without Horde Prime’s direction, they hadn’t chosen another for themselves and did the bare minimum necessary to subsist. Others weren’t absent, they were violently opposed to the idea of names and individuality or going against Horde Prime’s doctrine. They heralded his return whenever their guardians weren’t around to nip that in the bud. They were so convinced of His return that they refused to take part in the sins they were all committing for their own survival, sometimes care had to be forced on them. A few more desperate ones had attempted to end themselves rather than besmirch Prime’s Perfect Image. They were a danger to themselves and sometimes to others and were kept on constant watch. It was a duty that none volunteered for but each brother in the camp had to take turns doing it. These particular brothers were especially dangerous to the locals and as such, only their own brethren could keep both groups separate and safe. It would be Yudi’s turn to keep watch on them soon. He was not looking forward to it.

He sat himself amongst the shy, inert brothers that all huddled in a group and watched the proceedings blankly. The singing started again, this time it was only the lizardperson and his musical stringed instrument. It was soothing, or it had been, before he heard the noise of an argument between Glum and Joy growing in the distance. He tried to pay them no attention but their quarrelling did get rather heated and he couldn’t help but overhear.

“There is no point in performing invasive screening when a capillary electrophoresis will serve just as well for the task.” Came from a cheerful voice, the tone turning high pitched at the end of the statement.

The sound of a palm slapping skin was accompanied by a muffled “We’ve been over this three times today Joy” with a sigh, the voice continued in a flat, matter of fact tone: “,the probability of false negative test results is non-negligible. You can’t let a little discomfort get in the way of more accurate screening. If it were a less important matter, a little error or two slipping by unnoticed wouldn’t be an issue but we’re actually trying to have accurate results here. The differences we’re screening for are that minute.” The voice was growing louder as if to emphasize the conclusion “All exceptions to the standard are relevant!” after a small pause he continued dismissively “Besides, they were the ones that volunteered for the tests in the first place, we told them what that would entail! They agreed to bear it.”

Yudi turned to look at the two as they were having one of their usual arguments. Interfering would not help, no one wanted to get between those two when they were at it. It never ended well for the third party.

Joy was not in his long coat and usual garb, he was wearing a long sweater and a brightly colored scarf with… stylized flowers? Or maybe stylized insects. What were they called? Butter…something.

Joy closed in on Glum and lay his left hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’s just that there has to be a better way of getting accurate results.” He looked away, towards the horizon. He continued in a cheerful tone. “We’re in no particular hurry to have them, it’s a long term project.” He looked back at Glum, piercing him with his gaze. “We’ll find a better way.” His smile widened showing off his glowing teeth.

For his part, Glum seemed unimpressed. He shrugged the hand off of his shoulder. “This is inane; we already have a perfect way to test for it.” He exhaled through his nose as one of the corners of his mouth dragged down. ”Why must you overcomplicate everything every damn time?” He gestured with his hand skywards, fingers splayed as if to make a point.

Joy closed his eyes for a moment, brow-ridge crinkling minutely then he steeled his expression and continued in a faux cheerful tone again. “I’m not overcomplicating anything, you’re being inconsiderate. This is not a novelty.” The last bit was eerily low yet chipper, Prime-like in its intonation. 

Glum’s eyes widened as he stared at his brother then narrowed. “Oh, here we go again,” he smacked his lips then continued in a tone laced with frustration “please, do go on about how I’m being inconsiderate. It’s the most original thing you’ve said to me today, or this week or month. You’ve only said it each and every time you ran out of better arguments.” He crossed his arms and stared straight at him, scowling.

Joy wasn’t phased in the slightest. He tried to explain himself in a calm, soothing almost liquid smooth voice as if he was stating the obvious but it came out tinged in slight frustration. “Discomfort is a thing that we’ve had to bear before, it’s no longer necessary.” He spread his arms above his head “Why can’t you understand that?" then let them fall.

Glum grabbed the bridge of his nose between index and thumb and started rubbing while continuing with his eyes closed “Joy, it’s only a damned pinprick, I can’t believe you’re making such a fuss over it!”

For his part, Joy reacted as if slapped, his voice high pitched despite his efforts to control himself. “A fuss? I’m making a fuss?” He steeled himself and lowered his voice “Every damn time Glum, every damn time I bring anything to your attention you instantly dismiss it! You never listen. I know it’s not your hearing because you never did, even when we shared a hivemind, it’s just you being blasé about everything.”

They were both interrupted from their argument by someone in a long-sleeved shirt covered by a light blue and orange gradient feathered shoulder cape pinned to a pauldron, who had hesitantly walked up to them and coughed into his fist to make his presence known. Yudi couldn’t really see him from his vantage point but the voice was one of the kindred. With Horde Prime dead, some of his brethren chose to accessorize. It was especially true for those that had lived amongst the locals for longer stints of time, which appeared to be the case with this one.

“Glory be, brothers” This was spoken in a low, calm and neutral tone as if he too had been pretending not to hear their argument. Both of them stopped their dispute and stared at him intently, waiting for him to continue. The stranger added “I’m sorry to interrupt-”.

Joy smiled broadly and spoke over him, glad to have a reason to change the subject “Think nothing of it brother! Greetings!” Glum just gave him his best neutral stare and shrugged, the previous argument forgotten.

“Yes” he shuffled from foot to foot and looked to the side, one of his reddish tinted eyes became visible to Yudi as he turned slightly to the side while addressing the duo. Yudi knew this brother, not by personal acquaintance but through hearsay. His appearance being this distinctive made it easier to differentiate him from the others. He and another had chosen to be a sort of undertakers for their kind, putting them to rest respectfully. A curious choice of task as far as Yudi was concerned; the dead didn’t care for respect, they’re beyond that. The living and their needs should be addressed first. Then again, Yudi wasn’t surprised; with red eyes like that, maybe this brother was just as defective as Hordak. You can’t expect too much from a defect. He continued in a calm tone “I require your assistance, if it isn’t inconvenient”

Joy and Glum answered at the same time but with differing retorts. “Of course we can help you brother! ” and “We’re off duty.” Then they looked at each other. Joy raised one brow-ridge and Glum looked away while smacking his lips. “What issue requires our immediate attention?” He added in a tired tone.

The third brother continued placidly “You know of the mission Jerome and I have assumed for ourselves?”

“Yes, yes! Get to the point, everyo-‘ Glum intoned but he was interrupted by Joy, “ Would it kill you to be nice?” He maintained his stock smile at him but his eyes stared Glum down into silence.

The stranger spoke over the incoming argument. “One of the brothers we have found on our expeditions was not beyond help.”

“So one of the corpses you’ve been looking for turned up to be-“ Joy nudged Glum in the ribs with his elbow and for his part the latter grew quiet then nodded for the stranger to continue which he did, unaffected. 

“Yes, he is severely malnourished, dehydrated and exhausted but he is still alive, and sadly, quite hostile…”

“That’s unfortunate.. uh. I mean, his state is, not that he’s alive …” Joy stammered cheerfully.

“You wish to leave him in our care I take it” Glum interrupted.

“Yes. That is one of the matters I had wished to bring to your attention.” The stranger drew in a deep breath and continued. “The other issue is that, while subduing our… eh... panicking brother, he lashed out and injured my companion. I have provided field assistance and attempted to treat the wound but, I would appreciate it if you had a look at it.”

“Where is your companion now?” Glum inquired.

“With our new charge, keeping him safe and calm-”

Joy interrupted him again “Excellent! I’ll handle this, you stay here and keep an eye on our brothers, maybe you can get them to join in on the fun.”

Glum merely scoffed and retorted with “fine” then added “doubt it” and started walking towards Yudi and his group of gathered brothers. The stranger and Joy walked away conversing. They were far enough now that he could only catch snippets of the conversation, mere words like: ”field dressing” or “stopped bleeding” .

Most of the unadjusted brothers refused to change out of the white uniform and as such, Yudi, in his gray overalls and short sleeved brown undershirt, stood out like a sore thumb. Glum spotted him right away.

“What are you of all people doing here? It’s not your shift to help with them for another week.” Yudi could never tell whether Glum was annoyed or not when he spoke with that tone. His face was no use in expressing what he felt either. He looked perpetually annoyed to begin with.

“Mingling. What does it look like I’m doing?” He answered him with the most neutral tone he could manage.

“Right, mingling, with our mostly mute brothers…” He tilted his head to the right, one ear flicking in annoyance. “Yudi, did you get kicked out of your tent again?” he leveled a glare at him.

“Kicked out?” Yudi stammered, “that never happened, it was just a rumor. It was an overly exaggerated retelling of events from so-” Yudi started mumbling but he got cut off midstride.

“Right, and I’m a pretty pink horse.” Glum interrupted him brusquely. “You know and I know that you wouldn’t be here if everything was perfect. Very few brothers actually volunteer for this, so spit it out.” He crossed his arms and leaned on one leg more than the other. With a sigh he continued: “Who did you aggravate this time?”

“I resent that insinuation” he bit back petulantly.

“Resent it all you like” Glum continued while waving him off “doesn’t change the statistical likelihood of me being right.” He looked smug as he said it with his ears perked up and his eyes slightly narrowed. “Now spit. It. Out. Who?”

Yudi deflated all of a sudden, his ears wilted. He grabbed his elbows and bent forward making himself as small as he could as if wishing the earth would swallow him up. He continued in the lowest, meekest voice “It was… Kadroh, he’s upset with me because I ran my mouth off again.”

Glum just stared at him dumbly. He shook his head, ears flopping limply with the motion. He opened his mouth to retort but all that came out were gasps and aborted words. He put his palm on his face and sighed. “You… Kadroh… just… HOW?” he smacked his lips and continued “What could you possibly have said to Kadroh to annoy him? I mean, you really are an utter disaster but Kadroh is nigh immune to that sort of thing. I swear, he has a filter on his hearing, he only ever hears the good things. I bet that’s what fuels his annoying optimism.”

Yudi scoffed and kept looking at the ground. “You’re a mean wretch you now that?” One of the shy brothers let out a stifled snicker at that but when Yudi looked at him, he quieted immediately and stared blankly ahead.

“You of all people should be the last to remark upon that aspect of my personality.” retorted Glum in a dry tone while tilting his head to the side and lowering one brow-ridge.

“Why is that?” Yudi inquired.

“The Etherians have, as usual, a charming colloquialism to go with this kind of situation.” He chuckled “I don’t remember the wording exactly but it had something to do with a pot calling out a kettle’s color which is to say, you’re just as much of a mean wretch as I am, pointing it out comes off as hypocrisy.” He said nonchalantly.

“Right, a disaster and a hypocrite, what else am I terrible at?” He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to be alone in his tent, he just wanted Glum to shut up and go away but telling him off had the opposite reaction to what it did to others, it just made him more obstinate and meaner so he bit his tongue and kept looking at his feet.

“Well, for starters, you’re terrible at giving me a straight answer so I can help you out with your little miscommunication issue.” he sat on his haunches but then changed his mind and chose a more comfortable position on the ground then slapped the grass at his side while looking up at Yudi, beckoning him to sit next to him. Yudi mechanically obliged. He sat beside him grabbing his legs and resting his head on his knees. For his part, Glum stared at him expectantly but did not continue the conversation. The offer was made, it was up to Yudi if he wanted to accept the help or not.

“It wasn’t” he answered weakly, his voice muffled by his own legs.

Glum just nodded at him to continue uncharacteristically patient for once.

“ a miscommunication. “ he continued, “he’s cross with me because I yelled at the runt and he was there to see it.”

“Ah, that…” Glum rubbed his chin “I see…”

“What do you, pray tell, see exactly?” Yudi mumbled sullenly.

“You know that Joy and I were the ones that monitored the incubation, maturation and conditioning processes while on the Velvet Glove, yes?” He said matter of factly.

“That’s common knowledge at this point, why are you changing the subject?” Yudi scoffed at him.

With a sigh he continued “I’m not, this is relevant to your little problem. You remember how Prime demanded absolute perfection, yes?”

One of the shy brothers piped in unprompted “Glory be to Horde Prime!”

Glum pretended not to hear it but Yudi looked around trying to see who said it, looking back at him was a mass of blank faces and empty stares, he shuddered and looked back at the ground.

“Right, well… a great number of imperfections he’d have had us decommission newly decanted brothers for, were minor, hardly noticeable, inconsequential things like, say, a white spot somewhere that clothing would conceal, or a minor corneal issue that impacted refraction to a small degree resulting in off colored eyes or a minor visual impairment, a slightly longer leg than the other, no more than half a centimeter. These issues appeared when the maturation was accelerated because Prime needed bodies to throw at the battlefield. Those brothers were sent to die anyway; it seemed like a waste of resources to destroy them when those little… imperfections would not keep them from serving Prime to their end. So Joy and I… we pretended not to notice them. Then we made a habit of not noticing them even outside necessity.”

“Heresy!” Another angrier voice came from behind Yudi somewhere.

“Hush you.” Glum merely dismissed him absently” Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is this: the fleet was, in actuality full of little imperfections, right under Horde Prime’s thumb. Who knows? You might have little defects of your own.”

“ Take that back! Take it back at once!” Yudi yowled at him while clenching his fists. How dare he insinuate that he could be less than perfect, less than what he was meant to be?

But Glum didn’t, he merely chuckled and as Yudi’s fury grew, it only fueled his glee. The mass of blank, absent brothers was now paying rapt attention at the ongoing discussion with eyes and ears locked onto the two.

“That can’t be true, Horde Prime sees all, Horde Prime knows all!” He yammered desperately. “You’re just making things up to prove your sick point, whatever that is.”

“Horde Prime SAW all, Horde Prime KNEW all,” he put emphasis on the words ‘saw’ and ‘knew’, his eyes widening at each word as if to note the important distinction. Horde Prime was dead and this was a thing that both Yudi and the silent brothers needed reminding of apparently. “or whatever he deemed interesting enough to look at. Quality control was not one of those things Yudi,” he waved his hand around as he said this, “he couldn’t have cared any less which is why Joy and I could allow the things that we did.” He delivered his response in the most bland, matter of fact tone, as if the thing he had just said hadn’t been mind-shattering and cruel all at the same time. “What is it about the insinuation that bothers you so?”

“I am not a cripple!”Yudi responded to Glum’s calm with indignation.

“I never implied that you were.” came the serene, dismissive answer.

“I am not broken!” Yudi barked.

“Things are broken, Yudi.” He then paused for dramatic effect. “ _People_ are ill.” He looked him in the eye, all amusement and glibness gone from his voice. “ We are people now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much Thelema_Rhoias for your amazing rendition of Yudi! I love it to little bits. Open the browser at work to stare at it in my breaks, it never fails to bring a smile to my face! 
> 
> [ I love it so much! !](https://theleeema.tumblr.com/post/643360942505312256/another-brother-this-time-he-has-a-name-his)


	5. He was right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit dark  
> Tw: anxiety, panic attack, dissociation, mild hallucination, very small mention of intention of self harm.

“I never implied that you were.” Was the cold, bland response he was given to his impotent outrage. Whatever followed was drowned by the squealing in his own ears.

Air got stuck in his throat.

Glum’s eyes bore into him, unblinking. It made him feel small, insignificant. He wanted to answer back, to say something, anything, to fight against the feeling, against Glum’s horrid insinuation but his words held weight. He couldn’t shrug off the niggling, encroaching thought, that this was truth no matter how much it contradicted all that he had known and defined them. Their kind was strangers to deception after all – at least amongst each other.

He tried to give voice to his thoughts, to this insult, but the words wouldn’t come out even had he known what to say. He opened his mouth but even a gasp seemed too much. Electric shivers overwhelmed him and his fingers locked in place. His muscles pulled against his bones trying to wrench themselves free, a cold sweat swathed him. His own claws started digging into his knees but he was powerless to stop them.

Glum extended his hands towards him, slowly. His lips were moving, his tone calm, but even though Yudi heard his voice the words seemed jumbled somehow and held no meaning. Everything was numb, muted, the world couldn’t compete with the feeling of his hearts racing with each other to escape the confines of his chest.

His brother reached out to him and took hold of his face gently with both hands and held him, tentatively rubbing at his cheeks with his thumbs in slow, circular motions. It was grounding somehow. With his face turned towards him, Yudi tried to focus on Glum’s calm, unblinking eyes, that was less grounding… 

The sound of glass shattering had Glum breaking the contact. In a flash he was on his feet and dashing towards the origin of the noise, his panicked, loud shout of “Don’t you DARE!” accompanying the brusque motion. Yudi remained on the ground, prone and transfixed as his brother lunged at another clone, grasping the other’s wrist and twisting it in a curt motion.

The silent brother gasped and wilted at the contact, instinctively, his hold loosening on the broken bottle but not completely letting go. 

The other clone snapped out of it and with a snarl, he tried to wrench his wrist free out of Glum’s iron grip with not much success as the other silent brothers looked on absently, a circle of bland faces and hollow eyes, sitting in silent judgment at them all. He could feel the weight of their gaze, the burden of His scrutiny.

“I know what you want to do with that, DROP IT!” Glum snapped at him harshly and tugged the hand in his hold.

Yudi couldn’t make out the reply of the silent brother, only the sneering tone. His own hearts were still too loud, beating as they were inside his head. His vision went in and out-of-focus, everything blended in the haze.

The brother suddenly lunged at Glum with his other hand, claws splayed but missed as his sibling moved out of the way with a liquid motion, still keeping hold of the other’s wrist. He twisted the brother’s hand behind his back and the latter screamed with impotent rage but fell to his knees. His grip on the broken bottle went completely slack, it dropped to the ground and shattered into further little pieces.

Yudi stared at the now empty hand as it twitched in Glum’s tense grip. The fingers contracting and uncurling mesmerized him, Yudi couldn’t look away. The digits were bony, the joints thicker than was the norm, the claws somewhat longer…

Yudi grabbed at his own ears and pulled them down, he tried looking at the other brothers but then he started noticing them, the little defects… they were everywhere: a longer pair of ears, a neck completely blue, a white patch of skin where none should be… aberrations everywhere. A sea of glowing eyes stared on around him, at him, at nothing, swirling, unblinking. The golden glares seemed lime somehow, neon green at times…

He crawled back from their silent condemnation, their eyes bore into him accusingly from on high, dark spots, sharp pupils in their midst and they all turned towards him in synchrony, they saw him, the broken thing that he was now. They were all looking down on him - damnation.

He got to his feet with difficulty, his limbs didn't seem to obey him, they felt as if they’re not his own.

The sound of Glum and the other scuffling was faded too, he started walking back with small steps, the multitude of eyes all around him still focused while swirling, still unblinking, their verdict: unworthy.

The steps get longer.

His back hit something, a table or a chair, whatever it was, prompting him to start running, running away. 

He dashed as fast as he could blind and numb as his body dumbly carried him far off.

* * *

The dull pain in his elbow brought him back.

It pulsed and throbbed and it centered him in the present. He turned, sluggishly, to look at it, to assess the damage. The gray shirt’s sleeve had been torn off, he must have snagged it at some point. He reached out with his left palm to touch the injury, it was tender, the skin, sensitive but unbroken – a minor bruise. He flexed the arm to assess mobility – no impairment. 

He gazed at his own arm and flexed his fingers in tow, the muscles contracting to generate the motion, his forearm perfectly shaped, the diamond-like implant, now golden… but that was normal now, the green had mostly gone from all of them once they’d stopped the intake of amniotic fluid. This was right, this was not defective. Everyone’s diamond was like this… but everyone had small defections… was this normal?

“this is normal, this IS normal” he says to himself in hushed, nervous whispers.

He grabs his own ears pulling them down as far as they went and looked around trying to ground himself, he needed to see where he ended up.

Yudi was on the ground, by his cot, in the corner of his own tent. His back was against the canvas wall that pushed back against him, enveloping him slightly, like the confines of a pod… it was oddly soothing, he pushed against it while on the ground and grabbed his own knees in a hug then squeezed. 

The blanket on his cot was thrown against the mirror on the tent center-post, Magpie’s mirror – one of his roommate’s trinkets. It was not completely covered; he could still see his own legs on the sliver of it left exposed. They looked normal, if a bit strange to see them out of uniform. But they were normal. “nothing wrong, no, no, nothing…” he could barely recognize his own voice as meek as it was.

Yudi started to untie his laces and took each of them off with stiff fingers that seemed to get stuck in the laces as much as they were untying them. The socks were next. He looked at his own feet. They were right. They were ok. They were as they should be.

“nothing broken, nothing broken, nothing…” his voice quivered as he mumbled to himself.

He looked at the covered mirror once more...

Bits and pieces of his mad dash slowly come back to him: He ran into some of his brothers… made Bro drop a tray of meats… he should probably apologize for that at some point… he, uh, he knocked over a table at some point too, some plates… the elbow… his elbow… he slammed another brother, a… stranger, in his run, the sleeve got caught in that one’s brooch… Yudi tore it in his flailing panic while pushing that brother down… he had a slightly wider nose bridge… he… he was…

Yudi tried to calm his breathing. The mirror… it needed to go outside. He couldn’t bear to look at it, to look at himself… It had to go. He wanted to make it go away.

He got to his feet and stepped towards it. It was not fully covered… it. was. not. fully. covered. He could see his own shoulder, the mirror was imperfect, like the ripples of water, or was he imperfect?

“no, ah..” his own voice cowed, his words… strangled…

He tried to step back but the tent wall was behind, there was nowhere to go, it pushed against him. Nowhere to hide…

He closed his eyes and drew in one long breath, then another and turned away from it. Facing the wall, he stepped into his cot and tried to make himself as small as possible. He laid down on his side, away from the taunting mirror, away from it all… the cacophony in the camp was inescapable. The voices of his brothers so… different now…

They were not the way he remembered them on the ship… they were… all so different. He could feel a sting behind his eyes, water running down his cheek, a knot in his throat, his own breaths now whimpers... he couldn’t even control his own face, it was contorting all by itself despite his best efforts to stop it. 

He brought his knees to his chest once more and grabbed them, squeezing them and wishing to be as small as possible, invisible. The blanket would have been nice… it had gotten cold outside but it was on the mirror… he… he couldn’t look at the mirror. He rocked himself to and fro and in that tight knot, sleep eventually took him. 

* * *

There was a loud smack, and scuffling and swearing that woke him up this time.

“Come on! Blast!” some grunts and banging “Just! UH!” now scratching and a yelp. Magpie and his newest trash to add to the pile probably… More knocking as the new trash was banged on the old trash, their whole tent is filled with Magpie’s trash. Everywhere there was someone that threw something out, Magpie was there to take it and force it down Yudi and Pickles’ throats.

Whatever it was, it was big and it was probably going to be a nuisance… and if the past arguments were any indication, it was going to end up clogging Yudi’s side of the tent AGAIN. His head hurt, he was dizzy, he really did not want to deal with this but if he didn’t, that’s exactly what was going to happen eventually. Pickles never fought Magpie and yet, less trash ended up on his side. Worse! Sometimes they both got enthusiastic about the trash.

Actually, odds are that even if he did try deal with it, that’s what was going to happen anyway, just like that damn piece of hull, or the stupid servo, or that damn mirror… the mirror.

He drew in a breath through his teeth and forced his eyes closed trying to pretend he was still sleeping. He thought to himself that he’ll have that fight tomorrow, he could deal with it tomorrow.

More clattering, things falling, the urge to yell at Magpie was getting very hard to fight at this point. ‘Be like that, invade my space with your things, fine!’ he thought to himself, ‘ but can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?’.

The headache was getting steadily worse. ‘can’t you be a quiet nuisance for once?’. It was overwhelming, his teeth were scrunching, he kept swallowing at nothing. Magpie just tsk’s to himself and banged the trash around some more, obliviously.

“Magpie?” a sleepy voice just said.

Finally! Pickles was up. He had to make him stop the damn racket.

“Look what I found just lying around?” Magpie sure was animated and loud, boisterous even. 

“Huh?” then some shuffling and loud yawning. Damn now he felt like yawning too. ‘Swallow’ Yudi said to himself. ‘Do not engage’. 

“Isn’t it just great?” a clank as claws clinked against the metal trash.

‘How late was it?’ He wondered to himself. ‘Why did no one throttle him on his way here?’

A sleepy reply came. “yeah…” another yawn “it’s, uh… what is it?” was that genuine interest and confusion? ‘Don’t be confused, be angry for once Pickles!’

“ 'S a trigger form one of the princess’s traps!” Magpie chuckled to himself “it’s so fascinating to look at!”

“Now that you mention it, it IS fascinating!” great, now Pickles too was loud and obnoxiously excited.

“And to think! The princess threw it out as worthless. Hah! “ even more knocking. ‘Of course she threw it out, it was trash! Everything Magpie collects is trash! Trash that Yudi has to avoid in his own room, trash that he has to clean, trash that is getting on his nerves! Just like Magpie right now.’

“How is a statue a trigger though?” inquired Pickles. “can you show me?”

“YES!” ‘did he have to shout? Could he not see that he’s trying to sleep?’ a loud screech and a metallic crack was accompanied by a snap. “It’s a bit stiff, it was in an unused hallway so the trap didn’t trigger that often, heh” another slap on the metal casing. This was enough!

He turned abruptly and raised to the side of the cot. If Pickles wouldn’t shut him up, then Yudi will.

“GOOD.Eeeevening! Magpie!” said Yudi through clenched teeth. “It’s evening! Have you noticed that? Will you look at that sky, It’s dark!” his tone was scathing as he pointed at the tent window and the pitch darkness outside.

“HAH!” Magpie turned to him, a smug look on his face. “I knew you weren’t sleeping!” then cretin grinned at him. He actually grinned at him. The audacity!

“I will throttle you one these days!” his fists were at his sides, fingers curling.

“Nah! You loooove me brother!” His grin was even wider, did he just wink? He did not just wink at him.

“They’ll never find your body!” Yudi yelled at him.

“Will you keep it down Yudi? Some of us want to sleep!’ came a voice from a nearby tent.

“not this again” another disgruntled shout from another tent.

“Admit it!” Magpie said, slapping the statue shaped trash, “it’s fancy” His grin was now lopsided, his ears floppy, the smugness exuding from every pore.

Yudi got to his feet and stomped all the way to the statue barefoot. He grabbed at the thing, his clawed fingers lodging themselves in the metal casing. He stared at Magpie, provocatively and started pulling at the stupid thing. Magpie gasped and yelped at him. “oh no you don’t!” then grabbed at Yudi’s waist and pulled, trying in vain to dislodge him from his newest trinket, to no avail, the claws were wedged in and Yudi was holding on for dear life.

“don’t you touch my stuff!” He too started yelling.

“Brothers!” Pickles tried to intervene but he couldn’t get near because of their flailing about.

“It’s IMPOSSIBLE not to touch your junk! It’s EVERYWHERE!!!” Yudi yelled while trying to drag the damn thing towards the exit of the tent, his voice breaking from the shout.

“keep it down you two!” another neighboring voice. Their scuffle was waking everyone up.

“Let. Go!” Magpie started tugging harder.

“Noo!” Yudi grunted.

The dumb thing toppled over, dragging Yudi and his sibling with it. Magpie lashed out in his panic trying to grab hold of something, anything to prevent the fall causing more of the stacked trash to follow them on their journey to the floor.

“Are you injured?” Pickles rushed to them.

“If you two don’t quiet down, I will quiet you down myself!” another angry shout from outside, it sounded like Bro.

Magpie, now tangled under a pile of his own things yelled at him. “What is wrong with you?” then throws off the fallen things every which were. In his attempts to get to his feet, Yudi’s blanket gets thrown off too.

The mirror is now completely bare and illuminated.

Yudi can’t help but look at it.

He sees himself, small and prone on the floor in a pile of trash. He looked at his own face… the mirror was wavy. His vision started to blur at the edges.

His breath was getting away from him again.

“Why do you have to be like this?” Magpie was no longer amused, his tone was hard, accusatory. His back turned towards him. His neck... It was not the right shade of blue… gray.. the neck.

Yudi shuffled back, back from the mirror, back from the other clone and jumped to his feet. He tripped on the myriad of things on the floor but caught himself on the doorway. He ran away, barefoot into the night.

He needed air, he couldn’t get enough air. This couldn’t keep happening. Why did this keep happening? Why was he like this?

He started walking faster, the pebbles of the road stung the soles of his feet, he stumbled every now and then, he was not sure where he was going but he kept going all the same. He needed this out of his system, he needed to make sense of Glum’s words.

He should go talk to him…

No

It was late, he couldn’t be a bother to his brother.

He needed to do something, something with his hands, something that would take his mind off of this. He had to be useful. Perhaps that would quiet his thoughts. Thinking on a problem and solving it. That would give him peace. His steps carried him to the construction site through the pitch black and the chill and stillness of the night.

The place was surreal in the darkness, lifeless, frozen but soothing. The drones were on standby aligned in rows, gently humming, their system status lights slowly pulsing red. His tools were where he had left them earlier that day, or yesterday. Was it closer to morning than evening? He didn’t know.

He walked over to the work desk. Everything was neat and orderly, as he liked it. The power panel was exactly the same as he left it, the transistors needed changing.

He grabbed the soldering iron and got to it, the task focusing him on the present. The silence was soothing - no defects, no misdoings, just transistors and power lines. There was a beauty in the simplicity, in the logic of it all. His hands moved of their own accord, replacing every burnt out electronic. The cold was making things a bit difficult, he should have grabbed a coat.

Never mind that.

* * *

After a few hours under the lamp light, the newly fixed power panel looked pristine. All the jumpers had been set, all the shorted out transistors changed. All that was left was to connect the cables. The… cables…

He looked for the cables…

There were a bunch of cables suspended on the tool peg board that was on the wall. They didn’t look like his cables, these ones seemed somewhat thicker. The plugs had electrical noise in-line filters added to their base. There was no note as to who had done it.

But his cables were not there. Someone must have taken them. Someone took them without asking him. Or did he misplace them? He looked around, not on the wall, the desk, not in the drawers. He looked around the room.

Yudi frowned at the hanging cables and kept looking for his own. But no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find them. They were gone. The only cables left were the ones on the tool peg board, neatly folded.

He looked at them once more, begrudgingly. Then he noticed it, the scuff on one of the plugs. No wonder he couldn’t find his cables, these WERE his cables. He had made that scuff when he had thrown them to the ground in frustration earlier that afternoon. They were merely modified, skillfully at that. But there had been no disturbance of his tools, everything had been exactly where he left them, the cables too had been hung on the wall where he last put his own. Someone had taken the time to modify them and put everything neatly back into place.

He grabbed them, unrolled them and clicked the plugs in the jacks. All that was left was to turn it on. He stepped back from it in case it shorted like it had been doing all day and switched the whole thing on. The lights in the dwelling all activated at the same time and they stayed on. He backed away from the whole ensemble.

Yudi lowered himself to the ground and sat by the wall, looking at the working power panel and at the thickened, insulated cables.

He had been a fool. He had been an obstinate fool. The runt had been right all along. Had he tried to insulate the cables instead of adding bigger resistors, he would have been done with this by now. This whole day wouldn’t have happened. He deserved this.

He kept looking at the panel. The working with no issues whatsoever panel. He grabbed his own shoulders. The cold was getting to him. He tried to warm up by rubbing them. He didn’t feel like going back to the mess that was his tent.

A knock on the door startled him. Who could it have been at this ungodly hour?

“Yes?” He shouted in answer to the knock.

The door opened and Pickles came in.

“I saw the light." after a pause "I was so worried for you Yudi, where have you been all this time?” He looked scared, small. He was carrying a blanket and a thermos.

“I’ve been here all along.” He said flatly. “if I couldn’t sleep, might as well make myself useful.” He kept his voice neutral.

“You look miserable, why are you barefoot?” He asked as he turned his head to the side, only one ear lowering.

“I like my own feet” he said with a straight face, still glaring at the power panel.

“Oh Yudi” Pickles unfurled the blanked and tried to come closer. His movements were slow. He took his time getting closer.

“Why… are you here?” Yudi looked up at him. His tone was lifeless, tired.

“Magpie and I were worried, we didn’t know where you were.” He was besides Yudi now, still standing.

“Well now you’ve found me. What of it?” Yudi rested his hands on his knees trying for nonchalance.

“Come back, he’s sorry.” Pickles kneeled in front of him, blocking the view, then sat down, looking at his brother from his own level. His eyes were pleading, his ears lowered and to the side, so expressive. They were all so expressive now.

“Right.” Another sigh, he looked down, avoiding his gaze.

The silence was only disturbed by the hum of the drones in stand-by mode. Pickles too drew in a long breath.

“Yudi, what’s going on?” he reached out to him but refrained from touching him at the last moment as Yudi shied away from the contact.

“Nothing.” His fingers tensed on his knees. As he noticed that, he forced them to splay lazily.

“There is something, you just don’t want to talk about it” He said that as he put the thermos down between them.

“Right” after a short pause “I don’t”. 

“Then is it ok if I just stay here with you?” Pickles palmed the corner of the blanket he was carrying, playing with it absently.

“Do what you want.” He answered after a few seconds of silence, his tone indifferent. His own ears were lowered, he stopped himself from grabbing at them.

“Ok.” Was Pickles gentle answer. He wrapped the blanket around Yudi and moved to sit beside him slowly lowering himself on his brother’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me forever to write. I wanted Yudi and Hordak to have a talk at the party but they weren't having any of it. I had to rewrite this over and over again because neither of them were ready for it.  
> If Yudi doesn't want to talk, he'll get character growth thrown at him until he decides to.
> 
> Thank you so much Thelema_Rhoias for your amazing rendition of Yudi! I love it to little bits. Open the browser at work to stare at it in my breaks, it never fails to bring a smile to my face! 
> 
> [ I love it so much! !](https://theleeema.tumblr.com/post/643360942505312256/another-brother-this-time-he-has-a-name-his)


	6. In a new light

As soon as Pickles’ hand touched his shoulder, Yudi startled but he forced himself to stand still or at least, fight it a little less. He felt the warmth of his hand through the overalls. It was… well... not nice exactly, his skin itched at the touch as if it wanted to wiggle away from the contact, but he understood his brother’s attempt to comfort him and he appreciated the thought at least. He was cold and his limbs were stiff and he thought he should let this happen if only to warm up.

Pickles however had other ideas, he wasn’t content to just touch him. Oh no, he was leaning on him now, his head on his shoulder as he let out a content little sigh. His ear was tickling him, his breath itching at the side of his throat. For a moment there, he considered getting up and going home but, tiredness had made its way deep in his bones. He wanted to go but he just couldn’t force himself to get up and actually do it. Something kept him on the floor.

Pickles snuggled up closer, pulling the blanket tight around both of them wiggling against him, now draped against his side bonelessly and making little sounds of contentment. The tea in the cups on the floor was steaming, the smell was appealing but he couldn’t get himself to reach out for it, he merely watched the vapor snaking upwards entranced by the subtle turbulences in the stream. The same weight that kept him down was now taking hold of his eyelids.

With the cold leaving his toes, he started feeling the little scrapes on the soles of his feet. Why did he leave without shoes again?

His brother huddled up closer still, wordlessly tightening his hold on him, and despite his instinct to stay alert, to fight the contact, despite the invasiveness of all of this unsolicited touching, he allowed it. There was something niggling at the back of his mind that wanted this, an unnamed and foreign feeling that was content with this, that even craved it to some degree. The lull of the outside wind and the occasional clattering panel, the tea, Pickle’s calm breaths, the warmth seeping in his bones now, all of this made him force himself to stop fighting it completely. He let sleep take him.

* * *

The low droning of the systems was as soothing as the ever-present hum of the hivemind at the back of the brother’s head. Corridors of shimmering white perfection splayed in every direction. The clone was at a crossroad, another identical brother beside him, silently looking on. The two clones looked at each other but remained silent. The hum of the hivemind was ubiquitous and uniform.

They were walking together, in unison, both stepping at the same time, right foot, left foot, right. Their footsteps echoed in the silence. It was a static world of peace basking in an omnipresent soothing green glow, the light blessing everything it touched. The clone’s thoughts were mingled with the pervasive whispers of his brethren, like a viscous fluid providing a consistent backdrop to their steps ever swirling, ever stirring but harmonized all the same. A bright call was ushered in the sea of thoughts, a presence was needed in the throne room. The thought was loud and bright, a light in the murk of swirling thoughts.

A door materialized before the exalted brother, stark and metallic gray, it opened with a loud hiss disturbing the silence. The inside of the room was dark except for the radial monitor flickering on and off, static was present on most of the panels.

A clone was at the crossroads looking for his brother. There was no one there. The hivemind droned on at the back of his head once more, pulsing, undulating. Had there ever been anyone there? The corridors stretched on endlessly, white perfect buttresses illuminated by a soothing green glow.

The brother was standing in front of a door, it opened but not all the way. He thought to himself that he should perform maintenance on the defective mechanism. This malfunction must be fixed after he was done with his summons. What an irritation. The clone walked through the threshold and onto the narrow catwalk leading to the throne room platform. 

The ship’s bridge was dark, the throne turned away from him. The monitors were flickering behind it, the voices were like static.

The brother was at a crossroads, the corridors splayed endlessly, a divine temple that housed perfection.

Left step, right step, left they echoed in the silence of the bright corridor, the light encompassing everything. The droning of the voices at the back of the brother’s mind pushed him with purpose. He had a purpose. He was to escort his Maker’s esteemed guest.

Guest?

The exalted brother walked on, a primitive walked ahead of him. It had a shimmering metal-like skin, plates sticking out of its head, beady bird-like eyes, and far too many mouth bits. The creature was walking ahead of him, its paces were grating, out of step, its talons clicking on the ship’s smooth plating. It was perturbing. The creature smelled of… the brother had no name for it but it was not pleasing. His duty was to escort the creature. It was this one’s task that he had been called to do.

The clone was beside his brothers, singing of The Revered One’s mercy, of grace granted. A brother looks at all the others, yelling and chanting with elation. A sinner was in the pool, he was made whole again, there was yelling, there was pain, there was exaltation, a light so bright it eclipsed everything… relief at last.

A door opened in front of him, a walkway beyond the threshold, an endless dark void to each side. The humming of the ship systems was loud, so loud, or no… it wasn’t the ship it was the whispers, they were agitated? The voices were not… there was no harmony. It felt like grating in this one’s head, throbbing and pulsing… screeching, yelling… chanting… chanting voices. The monitors flickered and brightened with a blinding green glow.

The corridor was white. A hum… a din… a howl… there was howling in his head. The brother wanted it stopped, the noise was grating. The noise made everything blur at the edges. The corridor stretched onward it seemed never-ending, it snaked and undulated.

The brother was facing a door that wouldn’t open, he was called to serve his Lord. The door wouldn’t open, he should fix that. There was pounding on the other side. The door slid to open just a crack and darkness spewed out. There was a hum, a buzzing, and then a din.

The corridor was stark white, he was following his Lord, walking behind Him in awe. His robes flowed as smoke and grace personified. The brother walked in unison with his God, stepping into God’s steps. He was honored to be in His presence, to exist at the side of his Maker. He wished he could walk even closer.

His Emperor stopped all of a sudden, his jeweled ears lowered just a bit.

His brothers were chanting with elation raising their arms in supplication, the sinner in the pool screamed, his suffering would make him whole again. The brother screamed with all the breath in him his voice drowned by the cacophony of all the others and their chanting. The ones on the platform were wailing with exultation their voices trembling, unable to contain themselves.

The door opened for the brother, he walked into the throne room, illuminated by a green shimmer. The alien walked ahead of him, stiff and tense. The click of its talons echoed in the throne room. The radial monitors in the center of the room were displaying the fleet status. The Regent of the seven skies was leisurely seated on his throne, his attendants, statues on either side of him.

The alien walked up to the dais and stood defiantly straight at the foot of the throne, no gesture of supplication was made. It yelled with contempt at his God as if it had a hope to stop a Force of Nature.

The brother wished to push it to its knees, teach it proper deference but the Shining One merely hummed and smiled at the thing, amused. His calm, melodious answer was like velvet. He looked up at the thing and blinked slowly.

It screeched with a harsh voice, looking into the Lord’s many eyes – a challenge.

The brother wished to reach for its throat and humble it, to push it to its knees where it belonged. Did it not comprehend the favor it was being granted? He wanted to reach for the creature in front of him, the urge - barely restrained.

The Lord looked to the little brother, not the creature for a brief second, his smile narrowed just a little but it was back in place then turned to the thing and answered with a lilt. He bowed His head gently to the side with grace. One of his attendants descended the steps. The screens behind the throne flickered. The attendant motioned for the alien to follow.

The brother was at a crossroads, the sounds of the ship systems were muffled, as if by water. The walls shimmered brightly the shadows stark. There was a rhythmic pounding in his head pressing, pushing the breath out of his lungs. With a stinging static in his limbs, a blaring in his ears, the brother walked the corridor left step, right step, left…

The door wouldn't open. He pulled at it, clawing, trying to find some leverage. Nothing; It was utterly blocked. With a hiss of effort, he squeezed his clawed fingers through the seams, and at last wrenched it open then peered into the darkness and started walking forward, to the sprawling catwalk leading to the bridge, to the seat of God. The throne was facing away from the brother, it was facing the radial monitors that were flickering on and off… the blare was painful now, the brother reached for his ears with both hands trying to make the noise stop, it was so loud, so, so loud. The clone covered his ears and pulled at them as he kept approaching the throne. It was no use, the uproar was in his head and it was covering the sound of his own steps. The relentless buzzing was like insects behind his eyes, in his head. The noise was screaming.

The little brother looked on at the departing alien and the attendant. The Regent’s gaze followed them as they left the bridge, expression gone from his face, the green light of the screens behind him was like a divine halo shimmering off His skin. The Lord rose to his full height with poise and descended the stairs then stopped in front of the little brother. He eyed him, He saw him – the little brother was seen. His Lord reached out to him and caressed his cheek gently.

“You” He said in a voice placid as he held the little brother gingerly, “you have opinions”. The God looked the little brother in the eye and blinked slowly.

The corridor stretched on endlessly, the droning of the ship systems was drowned out by the multitude of swirling thoughts inside the brother’s head. They were so loud, so sharp, his steps soundless in the maddening din. The white walls bled, a viscous glowing green liquid pouring out of every joint of every buttress. He walked faster, his purpose called him.

The door snapped open and shadows started pouring out around the brother, encasing him completely. He stepped forward, was compelled forward, the droning in his head called to him the blaring so loud, so painful. A current in his limbs.

The brother stepped into the shadows and the shadows were liquid. The shadows were cold, they reached out towards him, the shadows suspended him, the shadows were green and they were no longer shadows. The liquid glowed, the cold of it around him a shock to his skin. It was shocking static in all of his limbs that accompanied the searing pain. His brothers were on the platforms around him yelling, chanting, wailing as the brother screamed in agony. His God looked on.

The little brother walked the catwalk into complete darkness with screams in his head so loud. The monitors on the bridge flickered on and off with static and then they darkened with a thump. The darkness of the room was all-encompassing.

The throne of God was Empty.

* * *

A loud bang and the clatter of falling panels and metal pipes accompanied by hushed curses pulled him out of his sleep. He wasn’t sure how early it was in the morning but the sun had yet to rise, no light shone through the windows of his workshop. He looked around in slight confusion, he was on the floor, a dead weight on his side… Pickles laid bonelessly on top of him, still holding him tight, one of his hands had ended up under him, poking him in the ribs. The position was not at all comfortable. Yudi’s neck ached sharply, pain radiating to one of his shoulders and back as he tried to move. He had slept on it the whole night with Pickle’s weight added to it, to make matters worse. He wanted to get up and start his day, no matter how early it was, he really didn’t feel like going back to sleep but his brother showed no sign of waking up. Not yet. Yudi tried to wiggle out from under him but Pickles merely held him tighter and hummed nudging his head into him.

With a sigh, he gave up and resolved to stay on the floor until his brother eventually woke up. Yudi hated being woken abruptly and he decided that he shouldn’t do it to Pickles, not after last night. The gesture had been touching and he really appreciated it, the idea of it at any rate… the literal touching… less so. He was not, however, keen on sleeping on the floor again, that was certain.

The door to the workshop opened slowly while squeaking, he should fix that at some point. Who could it be, walking in the workshop at this ungodly hour but the runt, who, sauntered in and headed for the drones without noticing him or Pickles on the floor which was just as well. Being discovered in an undignified heap on the floor would be humiliating to try and explain so Yudi decided to keep quiet, stand very still, and observe through almost-closed eyes while feigning sleep.

Hordak looked at the workbench and the working panel with a slight rising of a brow-ridge and mouth corner that were accompanied by a deep rumble. He humphed to himself and shook his head then walked to the stand-by drones and knelt slowly in front of them. He hooked each in tow to a device that he had brought with him. Ah. He was updating the firmware, he had mentioned something of the sort the other day… before he brought up the issues with the power panel…

With a chime, the display on one of the drones flashed red then flickered. While grunting, the runt pinched his nose and unplugged the device from the drone somewhat more energetically than the task required. His face was so very expressive; it switched with his mood tell-telling his thoughts in succession as if he were having a conversation with himself in his own head. He exhaled through his nose then popped the back panel off and dropped it to the side carelessly. He peered inside tapping his claws rhythmically on the casing with one hand while holding his chin with the other hand, his brow scrunching. He seemed so different when observed like this, less uncanny and more… unguarded, strangely approachable.

He rose and went to Yudi’s workbench picking out the tools from their places in the drawers, seemingly used to fetching them from their allotted spaces. It seems he had been here before and knew where everything he needed was located. He went back to the drone and started tinkering with the circuit boards with nimble fingers and precise, practiced movements. His features relaxed then scrunched in succession then his eyes widened in surprise. With a click, a piece of the hardware came loose. Hordak chuckled to himself and smiled at the thing. The expression looked so strange on him. Yudi was not used to seeing him like this. He appeared to be a completely different person while under the illusion of solitude.

“This will have to do for now.” he said to himself calmly in that gruff voice of his as he snapped the circuit board back into place after having tinkered with it. The drone hummed back online and after being plugged into the device, it began to upload the new firmware. The runt tapped the casing with his hand gently then after mounting the back panel he rose to his feet and placed Yudi’s tools exactly where he took them from with great care. After he was done he inspected Yudi’s power panel once more and nodded with a grunt while closing his eyes in silent acknowledgment. Hordak walked back to his device and monitored its progress while absently scratching the aberrant white patch of skin at the back of his neck. 

Yesterday had been a mess… Yudi really didn’t remember why he had even snapped like that… To add insult to injury, the defect, ah… Hordak had been correct about the cable insulation. Yudi was aware that he, himself, had… a temper. He had been aware of it for some time, even before all of this… Pickles too had a point with his assessment that for all his pushiness and eccentricity, the runt may have only been trying to help in his annoying, smug way. But then again, had it actually been smugness? If it were, he would not have avoided Yudi, he would just have brought up the fact that he fixed the cables by himself yesterday and then rubbed it in his face gleefully, it’s what Yudi would have done in his place and yet, Hordak snuck in, fixed the cables then put everything back in its exact place as if nothing had happened. He then seemed to resolve himself to avoiding Yudi for the foreseeable future. Or did he do this so he could brag about it to Yudi when the latter discovered his own folly, just to make the mockery that much sweeter? There was only one way to find out. He had to talk to him, which was just as well since he needed a new task anyway but, he should do it a bit later after a meal and a change of clothes, he was a mess.

As the runt rose to his feet, a strange current seemed to shimmer on the surface of his metallic prosthetic which made him yelp in pain and grab at the wall to hold himself steady grimacing and gasping for air. It was wrong to see this but Pickles didn’t really agree with Yudi’s assessment as he started stirring from his slumber.

Damnation! not now! He couldn’t have woken up before the runt walked in, no! Just great! He had to do it now and make a scene. Yudi really would rather not have this conversation bootless and filthy. His brother stretched and yawned audibly startling the runt who gasped then stiffened in that rigid posture of his and held himself to his full height. He gazed at them both on the floor his facial expression from earlier was replaced by his usual one, an almost blank face but for the smug frown and downturned corners of the mouth.

“My apologies,” he said crisply “ I did not mean to intrude”. He turned to the side, looking away from them and folding his hands behind his own back. “I will leave you to it”. With that, he hastily uncoupled the device from the drone with a shaking hand and left at a brisk pace closing the door behind him rather firmly.

For his part, Pickles just stretched, yawned then waved at Hordak's retreating back and stretched some more trying to get the floor-induced stiffness out of his own joints.

* * *

After coming to, Pickles suggested that they should go back and start their day. He tried to offer him one of his shoes so he wouldn’t be completely barefoot but Yudi saw no sense in having them both limping so he vehemently refused despite Pickles’ instance on the matter.

If there was one thing he was glad for, it was the fact that it was way too early for most of his brothers to be up and see him do the embarrassing barefoot walk of shame back to his tent. Pickles went to the mess tent instead to get some warm tea, it had become a morning ritual of his but Yudi desperately needed a wash so he declined the offer to join him.

Upon arrival in his own tent, he noticed the fact that Magpie had tidied up, at least marginally, and seemed to have removed most of his junk from under Yudi’s cot. That was a small victory in itself. Perhaps he should make a scene and run off into the night dramatically more often since it seemed to have more of a result than arguing with his messy roommate ever did.

He looked for clean socks and his shoes, perhaps a change of clothes, the ones he was wearing had gotten sullied.

He rummaged around for his spare set of overalls and a clean shirt, he’d go for a thicker one. He hated the cold. He wondered if he should go for the emerald-colored one or the dark blue sweater? Hmm… Not green… he didn’t feel like green today.

He found one of his steel-toed boots under his own cot but the other was not to be found. Perhaps he’d “borrow” one of Magpie’s since the latter always “borrowed” his things, the hypocrite. Unfortunately, his tent mate’s idea of cleaning meant grabbing all of the things in the room and hiding them in a random pile somewhere. After minutes of looking Yudi had found the missing boot but no socks and he’d had enough so he went to his brother’s cot and kicked it which resulted in two things: Magpie screeching and pulling the blanket over his head and Yudi hissing after hurting his toes. With a curse and growing irritation he grabbed at Magpie’s blanket and pulled it off. His brother dug his claws in and fought him over it moaning petulantly.

“Where are all the socks you kleptomaniacal menace?” Yudi barked at him.

“Can’t you be annoying later?” Magpie mumbled but refused to get up. “My eyes are closed, that means I’m sleeping”. With that, he turned his back while wrapping himself further into the blanket.

“Not anymore you’re not! Not until you tell me where you’ve stashed all the socks!” He kept pulling at the blanket trying to unravel Magpie.

“Yudi, it’s not even breakfast time” He wrapped himself even tighter into a roll and faced away from his brother.

“I’m not leaving without warm, clean socks!” Yudi yelled at him.

“I liked you better when you were hysterical, why don’t you do a repeat performance from last night?”

With that, Yudi raised his leg, rested it on the cot, and pushed until both it and its contents spilled onto the floor while screaming “SOCKS! NOW!” I will have those socks and I will not leave without them! The sooner you give me what I want, the sooner you can go back to being useless!”

Magpie was startled at first but the confusion didn’t last long. He crawled out of the blanket to one of the piles in the tent corner and started rummaging through it while muttering under his breath. “I hope you break your leg! And to think I actually felt sorry last night! You’re an ass, a violent, annoying, ass!”. Having found what he was looking for, he threw them at Yudi’s head. “Here! Now get lost!”

Having gotten what he wanted, Yudi decided to leave him to it so he walked out of the tent, clean change of clothes in hand, and started heading for the communal baths in the castle. The washroom was nothing like the hygiene chamber on the Velvet Glove. The room was not stark white and sterile but colorful, with vibrant mosaics and individual stalls for bathtubs and shower cubicles for privacy. It was oddly welcoming.

If there was one thing he particularly enjoyed about his new life, it was the fact that he could soak in hot water for as long as he pleased. There was no time limit and he could make the water so enticingly warm. He could stay under the shower and revel in the heat, the water leeching the cold away, it was luxurious. He closed his eyes and let the feeling wash over him lulling him, the heat radiating through him via his metallic ports. It felt so unbelievably good he hummed with contentment. Reluctantly he opened his eyes and looked for the scented soaps, of which there were so many, not only soaps but creams, shampoos… so many choices. He reached out, mindlessly, for one at random and started scrubbing while taking his time. His white hair had started growing somewhat longer and he considered letting it grow longer still- out of curiosity. He wondered how long it would actually get but then reconsidered, it would become an annoyance and besides, it was improper.

He walked out and dried himself with an impractically large and soft towel.

With grooming out of the way, he decided to go and request his new task before he headed for the morning meal; it was still too early for the latter but not the former since the runt was just as much of an insomniac as he was apparently. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much Thelema_Rhoias for your amazing rendition of Yudi! I love it to little bits. Open the browser at work to stare at it in my breaks, it never fails to bring a smile to my face! 
> 
> [ I love it so much! !](https://theleeema.tumblr.com/post/643360942505312256/another-brother-this-time-he-has-a-name-his)


	7. ...this is fine...

Having started to make his way to the construction site Yudi was struck by the fact that he still had, in fact, the same problem that he’d had yesterday. He still had to apologize to the runt and to make matters worse, he knew that Hordak had been right to begin with about the power panel, about the cable insulation and about Yudi making his job harder. It made Yudi’s outburst and loss of control even more embarrassing in retrospect. He was even beginning to feel ashamed at the whole ordeal. He would apologize and actually mean it for once. He had to make it up to Hordak somehow, but how?

What exactly would Yudi want in return as penance is someone had… said those things to him? This was bad, he had been utterly horrible. 

He stopped midstride and covered his eyes with his palms then sighed. Why was he like this? Why did his mouth get ahead of him like this? Why couldn’t he be like his other brothers, if not calm then at least apt at pretending to be calm?

Of course Hordak left, what other alternative had there been yesterday, for them to fight it out with claws and fists like barbaric beasts? They were kindred, they were better than that! What was the point of trying to debate with someone who told you that you were better off dead? Or that Prime wanted him dead, same thing really. 

He swallowed and drew in a long breath then sighed miserably. How could he undo this? How could he even talk to him? Would Hordak even want to talk to him? If yesterday was any indication, probably not. Yudi wouldn't blame him for it. He’d avoid himself if he could too…

Maybe if he gave him time… hmmm… what if he asked Pickles to go ask Hordak for Yudi’s next task? That way, the awkwardness would be averted.

…but that would be cowardly, and Yudi was many things but a coward was not one of those. Having thought that, he straightened up, shoulders back, and started walking towards the workshop at an even brisker pace. He would own up to it, he thought to himself, and he would submit to whatever punishment Hordak saw fit to dispense. He deserved it. This would make things right between them.

* * *

After wasting the better part of the morning and having gotten muddy and filthy again, he hadn’t managed to find the runt anywhere. At first he thought that he was being expertly avoided. Now that people were awake and going about, he inquired about Hordak’s whereabouts and no one had seen him. He seemed to have completely dematerialized as far as anyone else was concerned. Stranger still, the construction drones were online but completely still, as if they too had not been given their instructions for the day.

Maybe this was some twisted form of punishment. Hordak fixed the cables so Yudi would know he was wrong and he was avoiding him so that the latter would have time to stew in his own guilt. If this was the case, then he HAD to find the runt and talk to him, at least say his piece….

But saying his piece was exactly what had gotten him in this mess to begin with. It was what usually got him in all of his messes actually.

He had already been in the workshop 3 times, foundry twice, around the various dwellings in different states of construction he even went back into camp and checked the other communal places in case the defect was taking a break but no one had seen him or heard from him all day. He was stumped. There was avoiding someone and then there was this.

There was only one person who might know where to find him when he was being this elusive and that was their host, the hairy Etherian. If there was one creature whose mere presence made him strangely uncomfortable, the princess was it. For reasons unknown, she made his skin itch. He couldn’t explain it to himself for she had been nothing but kind to him and his brethren, most of them praising her after their interactions and yet… He made it a habit to actively avoid her but now; he was desperate. He couldn’t take the guilt and this strange form of punishment anymore. He’d rather suffer directly than be subjected to more of this so he made his way to the castle, to look for her in her laboratory, or as she called it now, her 'inner sanctum', ridiculous as that may have been. Perhaps she might even help him figure out how to atone for his misdeed.

The sanctum was nestled in the highest tower of the castle which meant taking the elevator up the spire. If there was one thing he dreaded more than having to interact with the Princess, it was having to do it in the confines of an elevator cabin with no escape. He was lucky enough, for once, to avoid this outcome. He didn’t escape the necessity of having to talk to her however and the road here hadn’t been productive in figuring out how he would approach the issue either. He knew that no matter what he would have wanted to discuss, the short Etherian had a way of derailing the conversation and he never knew how to stir the subject back on matters that interested him. It occurred to Yudi however, that the short Etherian was the best person to ask about the runt since they were practically glued together whenever they were not occupied with projects. It was one of the things that set Hordak apart from the Kindred. He preferred the presence of an alien to that of his own brothers. He would debase himself by allowing her to drag him about and parade him like some pet.

It was yet another thing that set him apart from all of his brothers, another thing that marked him as the repugnant blasphemer that he was, as if the defect and the strutting wasn’t enough, he had to make things worse by openly flaunting his degeneracy and allowing one of these lesser primitives to do with Prime’s creation as she pleased.

Huh….

With that thought, Yudi stopped in the middle of the corridor and blinked at the tableau of a furred animal depicted in it without taking any of it in. He stood still before the door to the sanctum.

Where did THAT come from? Was he that wretched and hypocritical? 

They were all degenerates now. All of them were interacting with the local aliens more or less, all of them were pliant as they had been conditioned to be, all of them were going against dogma by defiling themselves with local food and altering their God given image in small ways. What other choice did they have now? It was either that or staring blankly into nothingness and waiting for the end the way some of the shy brothers did...

What was it about the runt and his diminutive companion that made him recoil from them this strongly? What was it about Hordak specifically that made him so loathsome and unlikable to him? He had to figure this out if he were ever to overcome this.

He leaned on the wall opposite the painting and allowed himself to bonelessly melt until he was on the floor, clutching his knees while still staring at the picture of the ridiculous animal.

It occurred to him that he wouldn’t treat any of his brothers the way he treated the runt. He held him to another standard of scrutiny for some reason and had been doing it for months. He had been attributing malicious intent to everything he did amplifying his own hatred of him. _He had been unfair and biased._ Yesterday, Pickles had said that Hordak had been alone on this world for decades and he might not know how to interact with his own kind. Now that he was giving this some thought, it occurred to Yudi that his brother was right once more. Hordak had been amongst aliens far longer than he’d been with his own kind. To make matters worse, most of them had shunned him for weeks after Prime’s end both for his part in it and for his evident otherness. Despite all of that, he had made sure that the locals did not persecute his brothers when they were at their weakest, immediately after the Great Disconnect.

In the diplomatic affairs that followed the end of the war, Hordak had ensured that all of the former Horde members were protected from reprisals by taking all of the blame on himself in the treaties and promising reparations and technology to the locals. His companion Etherian offered her home to house them in droves after most of them found themselves lost and homeless.

Hordak had done all of that and had never brought it up in any of their arguments the way Yudi would have, he merely planned and built and accepted assistance from whoever offered it, including members of his former Horde… and Yudi had offered to help with construction. He hadn’t been ordered to or coerced in any way… merely offered a way in which he could be useful… He had needed to be useful, he still did. All of them did… they had been created to serve; the inherent need for it was still there. 

He rose to his feet and slapped the dust off his overalls then straightened both his posture and the creases on his clothing. He would do better from now on, he decided. He would do his best to be rational. Hordak may be odd and abrasive and despite the fact that Yudi had never treated him as such, he was still a brother. He drew in a heavy breath and went for the door controls.

* * *

The doors to the hairy princess’s sanctum opened with a hiss. The room itself was spacious, a high ceiling stretched upwards into darkness, to his sides lie robots and Hordak’s drones in various states of assembly. There is no order to it, parts were strewn haphazardly all over the place, their components mixing, the floor laden with cables, tools and even long purple hairs. In front of him lay the control panel for the laboratory and possibly the whole of Dryl. The monitors displayed calculations, materials, supplies… plans for logistics, infrastructure. There was a plate with very old and dried up food remnants on one of the devices at the base of one of the monitors. He kept looking around but the short Etherian was nowhere to be seen. He approached the monitors even more, his curiosity getting the better of him but just as he was about to indulge it, he heard the clatter of falling metal and shuffling, then grunting. He headed for the origin of the noise. He had been expecting to find the hyperactive princess but what he found instead froze him on the spot.

Green robotic limbs, that looked out of place with all of the purple machinery of the laboratory, twitched and spasmed eliciting a grunt each and every time from the recipient of their not so gentle ministration. Surrounded by them, and being suspended by one of them lay Hordak, half of his armor missing, the rest of it in the process of being removed when the device had malfunctioned and started pulling on the still attached pieces. The defect was strung and stuck facing away from him and was in the midst of trying to reach out to some of the tools on a bench situated a few steps too many away from the device with his free arm. The bits of armor stuck in his ports pulled at his skin as he was clawing at the tools in his attempt to reach them. It looked painful. He may have called him a runt but now, with bits of the armor missing, it struck Yudi how small Hordak actually was, how thin and worn. His body was covered in scars and white skin patches, bones protruding everywhere. It was shocking to see what lay underneath the armor and the elaborate cloaks. He was severely malnourished and wasted and the only thing going through Yudi’s mind at the sight of it was that in his place, he’d rather have died.

To make matters worse though he was immobilized and facing away, the runt’s ears turned towards him, he had heard Yudi’s approach and stopped struggling. He seemed to have gasped in relief and relaxed marginally. Yudi couldn’t leave now.

“Starlight? “, He asked, his voice thick after all the grunting, “please hand me the vice-grip pliers, the applicator has decided to punish me again today”. He then huffed and clicked his claws on one of the robotic arms. After a few moments of silence, he continued. “There has to be an explanation for the electric discharges… Starlight?”

After getting no answer, he tried to twist himself in the direction of the noise, the bits of hanging armor and twitching robot limbs pulling on the ports so visibly that Yudi’s own started feeling uncomfortable in sympathy. He should have left before he was seen but Yudi was frozen on the spot, all thought had left him. This gave the runt time to shuffle and twist himself far enough to see who the interloper was and to confirm that it wasn’t his princess. The two were looking at each other stunned stupid and silent. The only thing to be heard was the buzzing of the robot limbs and Hordak’s heavy breaths as he gasped for air. With one twitch of the applicator, the latter hissed and ground his teeth but that was enough to snap him out of his confusion.

“Get.Out!” He yelled loudly trying to puff himself up and look more imposing. He looked ridiculous but the tone of voice was so stern, it called at something familiar in the back of Yudi's mind. A phantom instinct to obey but Yudi had never been good at the obedience bit had he?

That seemed to snap Yudi out of his shock too as he blinked, shook his head and made a step towards Hordak and the applicator. “A… are you hurt?” he stammered the question nervously.

The runt however just grunted some more and squeezed the applicator’s support ring with his claws, twisting the metal in his palm with surprising force for how bony his limbs were. By the Light, the arm diamond was missing! There was a gap where the implant should be and scarring all around it as if it had been removed none too gently. Yudi swallowed.

“This is not your problem!” Hordak barked at him. “Leave!”

But Yudi couldn’t. He wouldn’t have left any other brother in such a predicament, so he decided that he wouldn’t leave Hordak either. He walked closer.

“Your judgment is the last thing I require at this time” he said through gasps.

“ I am Not judging!” Yudi pushed back out of reflex if nothing else. The grisly sight before him was enough of a deterrent though. The sight of... all... _that_... was disarming enough for him to force out: “I - I want to help.” He stepped closer, tentatively, "-Please" even as his stomach was lurching at the stretched skin and the shifting implants. Why did the defect have to be so damn difficult even _now_? “Just - let me help, for the Light's sake!”

Unlike the way in which Prime had cabling inserted in His ports, the runt’s seemed screwed in or secured tight in some way so they might not be easy to remove. They were holding his weight, suspending him in a fashion and moving the implants under the skin as they twisted about. Yudi shuddered. His own ports were rather sensitive, he really didn’t want to think what hanging from them would feel like and he wouldn’t appreciate being caught in such a vulnerable and undignified position either. Though, after giving it a bit more thought, Yudi was not so sure he would have been able to maintain composure as well as his slighter brother did. 

“Help?” Hordak sneered, “ I do not need your help!”, he twisted back into the applicator, the arms of the device pulling another hiss from him as they spasmed. “I’ve helped myself for decades!” He yelled. 

“Please!” Yudi whined as he stepped even closer as he added “Please let me help you.”

Hordak’s ears tilted back and down as his face twisted in a grimace. He closed his eyes and squeezed the distorted metal ring of the applicator again but answered in a deceptively calm voice. “You really want to help?” to which Yudi nodded enthusiastically. “Fine!” He continued, “Here’s how you do just that.”

“Yes?” Yudi interrupted, mouth wide, eyes fixed on his brother, ready to spring into action.

“You see that door?” Hordak inquired while pointing for the lab entrance.

Yudi turned to look at what he was pointed then nodded in confirmation. 

“Walk over to it” he said flatly and Yudi obeyed. As he got to the door, Hordak continued now yelling after him as he was quite far away. “Walk past the threshold.” And Yudi did.

He even confirmed it. “I did, what now?”

“You close that door. You saw NOTHING!” 

And Yudi does, waiting for something to happen. He waited for more instructions, something. Anything! He stood in front of the door a full minute before he realized that Hordak hadn’t actually instructed him how to be of any assistance. The realization was followed by irritation.

He started pacing to and fro in front of the inner sanctum entrance wondering whether there was any other way this could have gone or if there was anything he could do now but Hordak had forbidden him, more or less, from walking in and helping and he didn’t know what to do with himself now. He considered walking away as asked since the runt had told him that this was not his problem and he should forget about it. Yudi, however, hadn’t gotten his new task after having been distracted by his brother’s predicament so ignoring this and doing something else was out of the question. He wondered what would happen if he walked in and asked while pretending not to notice since Hordak seemed so calm about it… this might have been a regular occurrence. Maybe, it was just Yudi’s intrusion that had made things as awkward as they had been but Yudi kept seeing the way the cables pulled at the discolored flesh, twisting and wrenching it, whenever he closed his eyes. That must have been so painful. The annoyance gave way to worry then helplessness soon followed. He had to do something besides being useless in front of a closed door. He heard crashing noises and screaming from the other side of the wall and that spurned him into action. He might not know how to help and he may have been ordered not to but he had to do something and there were brothers who did know how to do just that. Either Glum or Joy would know what was to be done about this so he turned away from the sanctum and the furious screaming and started scurrying to get more competent help.

* * *

The walk to the makeshift clinic took no time at all since Yudi basically ran there and it was in the castle itself. It was safer to house the shy brothers within solid walls and they felt more protected too. They didn’t say as much, most of them didn’t say much at all but they were more pliant when surrounded by somewhat more familiar imagery such as the vaulted ceiling and the castle hallways with their angled buttresses.

He entered the clinic to find both of the two fussing over a third brother who had gotten bitten by some animal. They were for once not arguing about the course of action but working in tandem, like a well-oiled machine as if they could communicate their thoughts still. He wondered whether it would be inappropriate to interrupt them and just sat by the open doorway shuffling from foot to foot until Glum spotted him.

“Busy” he said in that no-nonsense way of his. “if you’re not bleeding out or missing limbs, it can wait.” But that only made Yudi more agitated he started stammering, unsure of how to explain. “I… uh…well… you see…it’s…”

“By the Eternal Light, out with it already!” Glum snapped at him, only to be shushed by Joy. ”Brother, your crabby attitude is not exactly helping.”

“We’re rather in the middle of something important here, I really have no time to continue last night’s little cha…” He snapped but Joy looked at him, his permanent smile wavering for a bit and that seemed to silence him.

“Please brother,” Joy turned his smile towards him now and pierced Yudi with his unblinking eyes. “do go on, what is the matter?”

At his brother’s gentle question, Yudi merely spit out “It’s Hordak! He’s in trouble!” he started to pace. “He’s in the princesses’ lab and he’s hurt.”

“Oh, well.” Joy chuckled, “that changes things.” With that he looked at Glum who merely nodded then he handed his brother the dermal regenerator and removed his gloves. He had Yudi explain what kind of trouble Hordak was in and went for a bag of tools that was already prepared and hung on the wall while talking to Glum. “This means I was right doesn’t it brother?” His smile widened as he closed his eyes while putting the bag’s strap on his shoulder. “This won’t take long.”

“I don’t expect that it will.” Glum answered dryly. “Try and talk some sense into him while you’re at it”. As the door closed Yudi heard his fading voice as Glum yelled after them. “I don’t expect that’ll get anywhere but maybe you’ll have more success getting through that thick skull of his than I ever had!”.

Joy merely laughed in his hand at that and added in a sing-song voice. “Stranger things have happened.” He then hummed to himself as they made their way to the inner sanctum.

* * *

The doors opened to the side again revealing the monitors with the logistics data, the piles of scrap and the noises of shuffling and grunting followed by a mumbled and a tentative. “Starlight?”

To which Joy, without making any attempt to walk past the threshold yelled in that strange melodious tone of his. “No one’s ever called me that before!” then he rang his claws on the metal arch of the doorway. “It does have a certain charm to it, doesn’t it?”

In answer to that, the sound of a slap resounded in the room accompanied by a sigh. “When did this laboratory become such a sight of pilgrimage?” The gruff voice added in a scathing tone “Who’s next? The Council of Lords? The Miner’s Guild? The whole Rebel Alliance?!?”

“Yes, yes,” Joy interrupted while playing with his own claws, bringing his index fingers to each other and clicking them together repeatedly. “this is all very embarrassing for you or what have you but I expect you’d like to get out of this predicament sometime today.” He was answered by more grunting and the sound of claws scratching metal then a defeated, thick, “Yes, you may come in.” to which Joy merely chuckled. “I knew you’d see things my way!” but before he made any step to help he gestured to Yudi to keep quiet by pressing a finger over his own lips then with a spread palm he instructed him to stay put. With that out of the way, he walked in and headed straight for the runt. After a few paces and in a position where Hordak must have come into view for him, he stopped on the spot. “Oh. Oh my! Well… this somewhat changes things”. His voice took a strangely high pitched quality to it as he uttered ‘changes’.

“No it doesn’t” the runt answered. “Just hand me the vice-grip pliers, I can handle the rest myself.”

“No, I don’t think you can” Joy replied, a bit more serious this time. “I think you’re a bit past that point.”

“And how exactly would you know?” Hordak bit back, contempt filling the word “you” as he said it “ Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to deal with this by myself, I don’t need your lip just that damn vice-grip pliers!”

To that, Yudi considered that this all would have been done so much quicker if Hordak had asked him for the pliers instead. He’d have given it to him and been done with it. Then he would have gotten his assignment and then went to have breakfast. Now that he was thinking about it, his stomach was tying itself up in knots. He was famished.

Joy tisked and shook his head at that then continued to walk until he was out of Yudi’s view. “I respect your resolve brother but this is somewhat past the vice-grip pliers stage. There is quite a bit of damage that you may not be able to see for yourself.”

The answer to Joy’s argument was a snappish, “I can feel the damage! I don’t need to see it! Now are you going to give me that plier or are you going to gawk?!”

“If I give you the vice grip pliers, you are going to damage yourself further.” Joy answered, his tone left no place for negotiation. 

“What do you propose instead?” Yudi had the feeling that this was a rhetorical question, the tone indicated as much.

Joy seemed not to mind this at all or at the very least, he pretended not to mind. It was hard to tell with Joy sometimes. “I’m not sure yet, what did Glum do last time this happened?”

“He gave me the vice-grip pliers.” Came Hordak’s deadpan answer.

“I seriously doubt that.” Joy admonished him.

“Doubt it as much as you please so long as you give. Me. That. Thing!” Scuffling, scratching and grunting was heard as his voice strained at the end of the sentence. Yudi couldn’t really fault him for snapping this time, if he were strung up like that who knows for how long, he might have been in an even worse mood.

“Please stop that, it looks unpleasant. Oh, oh, it’s bleeding, please, please stop.”

“If you plan on standing there and being useless, you might as well leave.”

“I want to stop being useless, as you put it, but you have to stop wriggling first and by the Light, stop making it worse. Gracious, it’s twisting!” Joy sounded horrified and Yudi couldn’t blame him, the image of the implants pulling on the underlying skin was seared on his mind. “Aaah, the implant is out of place, please, please stop wriggling, you’re hurting yourself.” Joy’s pleading voice was now frantic.

He couldn’t take any more of this so, Yudi walked out of the lab and stopped in front of the door just outside then leaned on the wall and allowed gravity to pull him to the floor. They were still arguing on the other side of the door, he could hear the voices but, thankfully, not what was being said. He tried to breathe in and think. Would walking in and handing him the pliers help or would it, as Joy had said - make it worse?

“Heya little fellow, are you lost?” Yudi hadn’t heard the hairy princess approach. She was holding a few monitors and a processing unit in her hair, the whole lot of it wriggling like some eldritch monstrosity, her face beaming at him as if the sheer aberrance of her head was nothing to worry about.

“uhm…” he replied unhelpfully.

“You seem lost, wanna help me out with a tiiiiny little thing?” She stretched out the word tiny just as she blurted the rest of the sentence out. She didn’t really wait for him to answer her as one of those purple wriggling tentacles holding machinery reached out to him and basically threw the processing unit at his chest. He caught it instinctively but was struck dumb by the whole thing.

“Great! Hold this!” She yelled after she’d thrown the machinery at him. “Now, come on!” Her freed tentacle reached out and grasped him, holding his arm strongly as she dragged him after her. Before he realized what was happening, she had dragged him back into the laboratory as she kept speaking. “… and I said to myself, there’s no such thing as too many monitors…”

“Starlight!” Came the- relieved? – voice from the side of the room. Starlight? Wasn’t her name Entrapta? How many names do these people need?

At that she stopped talking and turned towards the runt and a really pale looking Joy. She dropped everything she was holding forcing Yudi to try and catch as many of the monitors as he could before they hit the floor. Some of them simply crashed and shattered on impact. The sound of breaking glass resonating through the spacious chambers. She ran to the applicator, then her hair reached out for the bench, grabbing a few of the tools off it and handed Hordak the pliers.

“Finally!” he yelled then twisted to reach the twitching applicator arms.

“Wait!” She motioned him to stop with her palm and he did, looking at her attentively. “Wouldn’t it be better if I turned it off first so it wouldn’t twitch as much?” She rubbed her chin.

“Please do.” He replied calmly then clinked his claws on the metal ring support of the device, giving her time to walk to the back of the laboratory where the safety switches seemed to have been located. After a click, the applicator arms started sagging and pulling the ports down with them. Hordak grunted and grimaced but he twisted around and started unscrewing the arms of the device with his own free left hand.

Entrapta approached him, pliers and wrenches suspended by her wriggling purple mass of hair and added. “It would be faster if we both unfastened them.” to which he nodded and she started her work. When the first arm was disconnected, Joy rushed in to grab it and prevent it from falling to the floor while still attached to the runt’s ports. Hordak looked at him and nodded silently.

After having been freed of both the tangled robotic arms and the armor bits, Hordak simply walked out of the device platform and stretched nonchalantly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. And now it struck Yudi how small he actually was underneath all of that armor now that it was completely off, how wasted and small, his arms so thin and the spotting so … extensive and… elaborate… he couldn’t look away now that he was seeing the whole picture… it was uncanny.

Joy on the other hand fetched his bag and started rifling through it while he said in a faux cheerful tone. “That’s one problem taken care of, now for the injury…”

“There’s no need, that will stop bleeding on its own.” He casually dismissed Joy’s concern as he looked at the heap of armor on the ground then crossed his arms and flicked one ear in annoyance. “This will take some… assembly.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll handle it” the princess piped in cheerfully. “You get that port looked at. That lump looks like it might get a bit sore later.” With that, her hair dashed for all of the armor bits and lifted them off the floor before Hordak could protest.

“Yes, I should really realign that.” Joy added, now somewhat pressed, well... stiffer than usual, but before he could continue, Hordak interrupted him.

“No need, that will pop back into place by itself.” He waved off Joy’s concern.

Joy merely sighed and added while maintaining a strained, stiff smile “It shouldn’t be popping OUT of place to begin with.” then sighed. “You need to put on more weight; with so little body fat, the cybernetics are too loose and they might ‘bump’ into each other, I can’t imagine that’s pleasant.” 

“It’s not.” He frowned. “Thank you for the useless advice.”

“It’s not.. uh” his eyes widened and his ears flared as his hands stopped. “Oh, my apologies, that was terribly inconsiderate of me.”

The runt merely sighed “Never mind that” then his own ears faced downward in embarrassment as he added “ there is an… issue… I would … ah… address…”.

“Stand still” Joy walked behind him and sprayed … something on the shoulder port then rubbed at the broken skin while the subject of his attention grimaced but did not move. “Please go on, an issue?” He tried encouraging him.

“… Y… yes…” he hesitated then looked to his own feet without continuing. “I keep experiencing these… arbitrary …short… zaps… “ the words came out of his mouth with difficulty as if each and every one of them had to be pulled out of him.

The hairy princess yelled from across the room while still working on assembling the pieces. “That’s strange, there’s nothing wrong with the armor”. She hmmed then started disassembling it again. “maybe I overlooked something.” But Joy interrupted her .

“If I may. I think I know what is causing this but I will need a blood sample to confirm it.” He paused then looked to the runt and waited. The latter merely blinked, confused. “Do you consent to this?” 

“Oh, that.” Hordak looked surprised for a moment. “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you” Joy’s closed his eyes momentarily. His smile seemed less forced for once. He picked up a syringe and extended his palm upwards. His brother stretched out his thin, discolored arm and frowned as it was completely engulfed by Joy’s steel blue fingers that accentuated the contrast.

The latter quipped. “This will sting a bit.” 

In response to that, Hordak merely raised a brow ridge and tilted his head in incredulity, but at the sight of his own white, sickly arm in his brother’s grasp he added drily. “Just get it over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much Doberaptor, you are an amazing human and your enthusiasm about this keeps me so motivated on writing. Thank you for beta-ing this chapter. Words can't convey how much your enjoyment of this silly fic brightens my day. Sometimes it feels like I'm writing in a void so your encouragement and comments mean the world to me. Also, thank you Lady Binary for your input, it is very much appreciated.
> 
> Thank you so much Thelema_Rhoias for your amazing rendition of Yudi! I love it to little bits. Open the browser at work to stare at it in my breaks, it never fails to bring a smile to my face! 
> 
> [ He is so lovely! !](https://theleeema.tumblr.com/post/643360942505312256/another-brother-this-time-he-has-a-name-his)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Brother (Fanart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29518128) by [Thelema_Rhoias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelema_Rhoias/pseuds/Thelema_Rhoias)
  * [A Brother (Fanart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29518128) by [Thelema_Rhoias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelema_Rhoias/pseuds/Thelema_Rhoias)




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